


Someone To Keep The Rain Away

by zipplekink



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Cinderella Story AU, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff, Jock Liam, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:53:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4374410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zipplekink/pseuds/zipplekink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You have more question,” Zayn huffs out when he pulls away, dragging his fingers down Liam’s sides and wondering if he can feel the burn of his skin through the thick material of his shirt.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>Liam bites around his grin, eyes dark and blown out as his fingers scrape across the skin of his jaw, pushing under the start of his mask again. His thumb drags across Zayn’s lower lip, swollen and probably purpled from the pressure of Liam’s kiss.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“What is your name?”</i></p><p> </p><p>A Cinderella Story AU inspired by <a href="http://jmcats.tumblr.com/post/121597256878/hi-youre-such-a-talented-writer-im-wondering-if">this post</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone To Keep The Rain Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jmcats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmcats/gifts).



> OKAY. SO thank you so much to Jesse for giving me the idea for this. And Caroline for helping me through it. I hope it's okay, it was very frustrating to write at times because I feel like it was so different than what I usually do.
> 
> The song title is from One In This World by Haylie Duff off the Cinderella Story soundtrack, and the other song mentioned in this story is I'll Be by Edwin McCain. 
> 
> Oh, and also sorry for the wait I love you guys!
> 
> (Update I realized I should probably tag this just in case, but there is mentions of bullying and a scene of bullying.)

Zayn loves fairy tales. He remembers insisting his mother read them to him every night before bed, after having slept over Sid’s and listening to him read the story of the Snake Prince to his daughter before bed. Zayn loves the kingdoms, and true love conquering despite the most evil occurrences. He likes the princesses who kiss frogs, the heroes who fight through dragons and other obstacles that seemed terrifying to him when he was younger, just to save their Princes.

_You’re my little prince, aren’t you sunshine?_

His mother used to say it to make him giggle, because he never talked about fighting through the dragons or being Prince Charming – but instead being one of those princes locked up in towers and preparing for his knight in shining armor to come find him. But the nickname stuck, and now the memory of it makes his chest feel tight more times than it makes him smile.

The storybooks had been stored away when Zayn was eight with a scolding from Yaser. One of the only times his father had scolded him without a smile or a press under the chin afterwards. And it was stupid really, because all Zayn had done was comment on how his new step mother was most likely going to poison his food or something because she was the epitome of evil.

It wasn’t necessarily untrue, just slightly dramatic. So he had to stick with superheroes, with long capes stuck to their backs and a string of material of material wrapped around their heads for a lousy attempt at keeping their identity secret.

And his sketchbook, filled with rough sketches of those castles and dragons, wicked witches with similar features to his step mother, and princes with soft brown eyes and strong jaws. Zayn always keeps one on him, whether it be the tiny pocket sized notebooks, or the thick, expensive ones that he saves up his weekly tips from the restaurant to buy. He never knows when the urge to be alone will strike, so he keeps one on him just in case.

It is an escape, thinking about these kingdoms and superhero universes. It isn’t harmful to pretend that there is a chance he could be saved, whether it be by his Prince Charming pulling him from his attic bedroom or Clark Kent defeating Lucy Tremaine for once and for all.

At least, it’s not harmful if it is only sometimes and he remains focused on reality most of the time. The only way he is going to get out of shit North Valley and far from everything that used to feel like family but now just feels tainted, is by continuing to work at the diner, his schoolwork and keeping his mouth closed so Lucy won’t keep his money for Princeton away from him.

That was a deal they made, quite a few years back after his father died and _Yaser’s_ became _Lucy’s_. Zayn would work, for free, whenever and as much as Lucy wanted and she would supply out as much as he needed of his father’s money for college tuition.

Turns out that _as much as she wants_ means always, which is why Zayn is hidden behind the diner right now instead of making his way to school. He leans against the brick wall, toeing at a rotten apple core. It’s his haven really, as sad as that may be. It is the one place Lucy, or her two sons, will not venture out to. It is the only place that hasn’t changed any from when his father was still alive and ran this place. Well, except maybe for the strong fish odor from today’s breakfast. That part is new -

Salmon pancakes are a thing, apparently.

They don’t technically open for another thirty minutes, but their regulars always come early before the waitresses’ work shifts start. It gives Zayn little to do, since there are only a few of them and they come right up to the counter, which is Caroline’s section to tend to and she always has their orders ready to serve before they get there.

Zayn eyes the bright pink sign stretching high above the parking lot with distaste. It has been nearly nine years since that sign had been put in place, but it still makes his stomach curl every time he looks at it. The words do, the blocky pink letters spelling out _Lucy’s Diner_ fill him with hate, really. His mother used to tell him never to use the word hate, but he hasn’t learned a stronger word yet.

It should say _Yaser’s,_ on a white sign in thin red lettering, with a wooden looking frame. It shouldn’t blink on until lunch time, because Yaser refused to serve breakfast because that had been Zayn’s mother’s favorite meal. He used to tell Zayn all the time how she believed the best way to start the day right was to start it with family.  

The air should smell like a mix of spices and the incense oils his dad used to always burn in the dining area, especially after his mother’s death because Zayn swore he had found one that smelt like her. Sid shouldn’t be mumbling all day about how Lucy refuses to let him use anything other than pepper and salt for flavor, and how that is a _disgrace_.

The walls inside are bubble gum pink and the booths metallic, which is a pain when the sun catches on them just right and blinds Zayn when he is serving. It should feel more like home, with Bokhara patterned carpet and dark mahogany tables with chairs that have maroon colored seat cushions, and a collection of items that he can barely remember decorating the shelves and the counters, all which his parents received from the neighborhood when they opened the diner.

At least Caroline, Sid and Paul are still here. Caroline had been hired when she was nineteen, a few years after his mother passed away. She started as a waitress but she practically runs the place now. Though, they can never say that out loud unless they want to face one of Lucy’s tantrums.

Sid is the cook, an old friend of Yaser’s from high school, who used to bring Zayn into the kitchen when he was younger and let him think he was making the tandoori masala all by himself, when really he was just making a bigger mess than anything else.  

And Paul, who looks like he shits happiness but could knock you out without breaking a sweat, used to be the head of the wait staff but since Caroline does that now, Zayn isn’t really sure what his role is. Zayn thinks he is still around for him. Well, all of them really. They are his family, not so much Lucy and her sons, Danny and Ant.

Zayn’s phone buzzes where it rests in the pocket of his shirt. Another problem with this place. Yaser had a more lax uniform code, while Lucy is strict – making him wear a soft banana yellow button up over black pressed pants even if he so much as glances at the restaurant. The rest of the waitresses wear pink and black poodle skirts because _men don’t wear pink, silly boy._

The butt of the cigarette balances between his lips as he reaches into the pocket with eager fingers, already knowing what is going to be on his screen when he hits the unlock button.

_Battyboy7: I hate mornings : (_

Zayn grins foolishly to himself, tapping out his response. It’s his _Battyboy smile_ as Harry calls it, describing it as _love sick_ with a lot of gagging noises to follow.  He won’t deny it though, because Zayn feels love sick, always craving that username to pop up on his phone, addicted to the way his heart pounds in his chest when it does.

They have been talking for four months and Battyboy has become an even better escape from reality than the fairy tales and superheroes. But he feels just as fictional as the stories do, because Zayn only knows him as Battyboy and has no idea what he looks like.

That is completely Zayn’s fault, really. Because other than their similar interests in superheroes, Princeton and old school RnB bringing them together on the dating app that Zayn had been embarrassed about downloading, they were also matched based on proximity.

They both lived in North Valley and went to North Valley High School.

And Zayn hates everyone at North Valley High School.

_BattyBoy7: the only reason I like getting up is because I get 2 talk to u_

He bites around his grin, thumbs hovering over the keypad before he sends a quick _really??_ with eight (maybe more) blushy emoticons. Love sick just might be an understatement.

“Zayn Malik!”

Zayn jerks, stubbing out his cigarette quickly before the back door opens and Caroline’s head pops out. Her hair is pulled into a tight bun at the top of her head and she wears the bubblegum pink shirt, but with the black pants instead of the skirt. Her normally kind eyes are narrowed, her usual smile is pushed into a frown and Zayn pushes off the brick wall and runs inside before she can ask him what he is doing outside.

“What did I tell you about smoking?” Caroline scolds, hands going to her hips. She is the closest thing to a mother Zayn has had in thirteen years, and though his memories of his mother are hard to retrieve sometimes, he remembers them easily when he is with Caroline. There has always been something old about her, even when she was nineteen.

“Sorry,” Zayn apologizes sheepishly, reaching for one of the aprons that hang by the door. The kitchen reeks of fish and he doesn’t think he will ever get used to the smell. He hopes Lucy will change the theme soon, to something less foul. “Got a lot on my mind.”

She softens, giving him a look of understanding before she blocks his reach for the apron. “Get out of here before you are late for school and miss that exam you have been studying for all week.”

Zayn hesitates, not letting go of the apron. It wouldn’t be a problem if he missed the exam, because he has already sent his teacher an email to reschedule, he just doesn’t want to. “But Lucy –“

“Fuck her,” she snaps, frowning at Zayn. Caroline has never been shy about admitting her hatred for their boss, even to their boss’ face. And she is the only one who can do that actually, since Lucy knows that this place will fall apart if it weren’t for her. “I’m not letting that troll keep you from school. Now go, before I put you on cleaning duty tonight.”

Zayn can’t help the goofy smile on his lips when he grabs Caroline’s shoulders and presses it to her cheek with a string of thank yous and promises to make it up to her, even though Caroline always says, “You’ll make it up to me by gettin’ out of here and gettin’ that degree.”

He grabs his keys before he jogs out the door and to the parking lot. He sends a quick text to Harry, telling him he can pick him up after all. They will only be a few minutes late, but Harry usually skips when Zayn can’t come to school.

_Battyboy7: ya babe my fave thing in the world_

_Battyboy7: well until u let me meet u_

Zayn replies back with _soon_ , before he puts the phone in his backpack to resist temptations to answer it while he is driving.

 

Harry is waiting in front of his house when he pulls up, probably having heard the rattle of his car the moment he pulled onto his road. The car jerks when he parks it, making a crunching noise that used to scare Zayn, but he has grown accustomed to it.

Zayn groans when his eyes find his best friend. Harry is decked out in a red and blue track suit, his wild hair pushed back by a matching sweatband, strutting across the grass with a dip in his bony hip.

Every day is a surprise when you have an inspiring actor as a best friend, who likes to dress up for no reason and pretend to be someone else for the day (every single day). Not that Zayn can judge really, because he thinks Harry does it to hide just like Zayn keeps his eyes on the hallway floor to do.

“This outfit only cost two dollars, can you believe it?” Harry says in amazement, sliding into the passenger seat. He drags his fingers down his front, an impressed smile on his lips. It looks to be made of the same fabric as bath towels, the expensive soft ones that line the inside of Lucy’s bathroom.

“Yes,” Zayn laughs, pulling away from Harry’s house. “I would even say it is a bit overpriced.”

Harry scoffs at him. “D’you think Sophia will like it?”

He grimaces some, answering with a careless shrug of his shoulders and keeping his eyes planted on the road. “I reckon she is more into the jock type, y’know, with her boyfriend being the football captain and all.”

The hope in Harry’s face doesn’t diminish any when he chances a look at him and Zayn kind of hates that, because Sophia is almost the worst person at their school. She is only beaten out of first place by her boyfriend.

“Maybe you’re right. I’ll try that one tomorrow?”

“Yeah, maybe Haz.”

Zayn’s phone vibrates in his backpack and he tightens his fingers around the steering wheel to keep himself from reaching for it, because he always lectures Harry about texting and driving. (The reason he has totaled three cars already, but Harry always seems to forget that bit.)

“Boyfriend?” Harry coos, digging for his phone where it has fallen under his sketch books, even though he still hasn’t managed to figure out his passcode. (It’s Harry’s birthday).

“No,” Zayn says pointedly, taking a sharp turn into the school parking lot to bump Harry around in his seat a little. “It’s Battyboy.”

Harry sighs, sliding the phone into Zayn’s lap without looking at it. “You still haven’t told him you’re BruceLame12?”

He looks away from the parking lot for a moment to glare at his best friend, even though the words that leave his lips and the defensive way he says them are more embarrassing. “It’s PrinceBoy, actually.”

That username had been an accident. He had meant to type out PrincetonBoy, and he had hit the create button before he had realized his mistake.

“Whatever, not the point. How come you haven’t told him yet? Don’t you want to ride off into the sunset with your lover boy? On like a white horse dressed in gold or something?”

Zayn rolls his eyes, nerves making his stomach tighten. They have this conversation nearly every day, always filled with fairy tale jokes that Zayn knows aren’t meant to be harmful. “He is someone that goes here, remember? And I don’t want to find out he is someone like –“

He stops, breath hitching some as he parks the car in front of the Jeep that Sophia and her boyfriend, Liam Payne, are currently stepping out of. Stupid football captain, student body president, boy next door but is actually a dickhead when the parents aren’t looking, Liam Payne.

Stupid Liam Payne with his thick arms and soft looking blondish brown hair, which is currently a curly mess around his stupid pretty head. With his full, ruddy colored lips that Zayn hasn’t ever thought about biting because that wouldn’t make any sense because he hates him, Liam Payne. And dark brown eyes and a sharp jaw that Zayn promises hasn’t influenced his Prince Charming sketches because Liam Payne would be more like Prince Assface, or something.

“Those assholes.” Zayn gestures towards Liam and Sophia, and the two loud mouths that always follow Liam around – Louis and Niall. They are both on the football team as well, and Zayn used to be friends with Niall back in like, the fourth grade. He was nice, funny too – until he ventured over to the dark side which was the table Louis and Liam sat at during lunch in the fifth grade.

“Hey,” Harry croaks defensively. “That is Sophia Smith you are talking about.”

Zayn sighs at him as he climbs out of the car. “And she is an asshole, Haz.”

“A beautiful asshole,” Harry sighs dreamily, eyes latching onto her. She is pretty, with her shapely tanned legs and soft long brown hair that is currently pulled into a ponytail. She wears a North Valley High cheerleading shirt that hugs her breasts, and clings to her toned stomach – and yeah, Zayn can see the appeal. But he won’t admit it because he hates her too. Her personality seems to warp her beautiful face into something more resembling those witches and dragons his mother used to show him in his fairy tale books.

“What are you staring at, Diner Boy?” Niall shouts, cackling like mad and high fiving Louis and it is annoying because it isn’t funny, not because he cares about the dumb nickname they have been calling him for years.

It is better than orphan boy, which Louis had called him for a whole year after his father passed away during a bad earthquake that struck North Valley. And the only reason Louis had stopped calling him that was because their teacher threatened to take recess away from him if he continued.

And then he was called teacher’s pet until he started working at Lucy’s.

“See,” Zayn points out grimly, turning his eyes forward as Liam turns in his direction to see who Niall is talking about. He doesn’t care if Harry follows as he walks hurriedly towards the school with his phone in his hand. The words really don’t bother him, but he craves the comfort that is Battyboy even more -

_Battyboy7: sry I just want 2 meet u rly bad, kiss u touch u, see that smile I bet is wicked adorable_

_PrinceBoy: i’m super lame, it will b a disappointment_

_Battyboy7: bullshit ur the only person I cn b myself around bc we r the only cool ones duh_

Zayn slides against his locker when he gets to it, curling his knees into his chest and holding the phone in his hand like it is something precious and fragile. Like it is his whole world, and maybe it could be. If he grows the courage to actually meet Battyboy.

_++_

Liam turns the phone face down against his desk, not wanting to see when PrinceBoy’s response comes through, because somehow he has convinced himself that that works in ridding his nerves. He isn’t paying attention to his Algebra professor at all, who decided to go on a tangent about the potential dangers of a prolonged drought, which is very serious and he knows that but Liam has heard it over and over again for weeks and he really isn’t interested in talking about it anymore.

And, because he can’t stop thinking about PrinceBoy, and the fact that he is in the same building as him somewhere. Probably hidden away in the library, because he had been bitching about the librarian Mr. Winston about twenty minutes ago, and he always seems to spend his free block there, texting him about the novel Liam is distracting him from reading, or the new sketch that he is working on.

_Halloween dance tonight, middle of the dancefloor say llpm?_

He replays the message he sent just a moment ago over and over again in his head, grimacing because he should have wrote please or added a smiley face or something to make it seem like he wasn’t begging or pressuring, which he is kind of doing both of.

Liam just doesn’t get why PrinceBoy doesn’t want to meet him, or tell him his name, or anything. Because when Liam had told him about how alone he always feels, despite having all these “friends” around him, PrinceBoy agreed – telling him he hates feeling that way, and then told him about all the shitty people in his life that makes him feel that way too.

Liam’s solution had been them being alone together, which PrinceBoy had only responded with an ‘aha :D’. He hadn’t taken that as a bad thing, because PrinceBoy isn’t a man of many words, even though he is aspiring to be a writer.

But even the shortest of responses make Liam smile so hard his cheeks hurt. He likes when PrinceBoy just writes back _aha_ , because Liam imagines his nose wrinkling as he smiles, or his eyes crunching closed together like his own do sometimes when he laughs. Liam probably would make a fool out of himself if he ever saw him smile in person, he is sure of it. Pass out, cry – something embarrassing.

He turns the phone over hesitantly after trying to failing to fight off the urge to look, pressing the side button to light up the screen and his heart picks up in anticipation even more, and he might be sick really when he sees PrinceBoy has messaged him three times.

_PrinceBoy: sure thang loverboy kisses muah xoxo_

_PrinceBoy: sorry that was my friend_

_PrinceBoy: but um ya sounds wicked aha :D_

Liam bites around his smile, cheeks hurting as he types back a calm response and excuses himself from class because he doesn’t feel calm at all. He feels like he could run laps around the track with the amount of excitement pounding through him.

He thinks about it all the time, holding PrinceBoy in his arms, kissing those lips he imagines are slightly chapped from the dry California air, biting at the ink on his skin that PrinceBoy has told him about. He imagines it all the time, except he doesn’t have a face to imagine it with.

Nothing to go by, but he hasn’t exactly told PrinceBoy who he is either. Everyone at the school knows him and he is nervous really, that PrinceBoy is going to judge him or see him as the person he has always pretended to be. A cocky jock who doesn’t care that his friends pick on everyone all of the time. He does care, but he is too scared to say anything to them.

Like earlier this morning, Louis had been picking on some kid in a red and blue tracksuit and the kid looked absolutely gutted, but Liam just remained quiet, pretended not to notice. He doesn’t want to tell PrinceBoy that he is Liam Payne and then PrinceBoy stop talking to him for good, because PrinceBoy is the one good thing in his life -

_Battyboy7: im leaving school now to get a costume :D_

_PrinceBoy: naughty naughty :p_

_Battyboy7: oh youll see i hope_

He hadn’t bothered to buy a costume yet, because he hadn’t fancied the idea of going as one of the Three Musketeers with Niall and Louis, and he had been hoping to break up with Sophia before today, but he keeps chickening out whenever he gets the opportunity to do so. She is almost as terrifying as his father, and Liam has never been good at standing up to them. Or anyone, for that matter.

Liam sneaks out of the school, easily going undetected as he makes his way across the parking lot to hop into his Jeep. His fingers shake where they wrap around the steering wheel as he considers the fact that PrinceBoy may high tail it out of the dance when he sees who he is.

 

The day tries it’s hardest to bring down Liam’s mood, with his father yelling at him because he skipped out on his shift at the car wash because costume shopping had took longer than he had anticipated. Then Sophia, who has nagged him all day about everything on the face of the Earth and then dragged him to the worst restaurant on the strip. The one that reeks of fish and has tables that work together with the sun to blind people, and everyone from their school is here before the dance, already dressed in their costumes.

No one at Liam’s table is dressed up yet though, thankfully. He flips through the menu, barely paying attention to the chatter around him. Sophia is wrinkling her nose at Danielle, her best friend, because Sophia appears to think that a drought means all the water is gone completely and there is no way she can ask for ice cubes in her ice tea. Half of their menu is fish related items, like salmon pancakes and fish with potatoes.

Liam grimaces. He is too queasy to eat, anyway. He has been trying to talk to Sophia all day, but she had interrupted each time with talk of the dance or about what they are going to do after the dance, and it is really hard to say “I want to break up” after someone finishes going into detail about how they are going to suck you off later.

“Can I take your order?”

Liam runs a hand down his face, trying to figure out how to break up with Sophia in the next hour without just blurting it out and then running away. PrinceBoy hasn’t texted him back since school ended, just a quick message about being called into work and that has put a downer on his day as well. Liam hopes he can still show up to the dance, since the last message Liam had sent was asking him want time he got off to see if he could.

“Well, hello there Diner Boy.”

Liam glances at the boy standing in front of their table, whose pale yellow shirt is buttoned up to his neck and he wears this white, paper folded hat that covers most of his head. His cheeks are burnt red, and he narrows his eyes at Sophia, jaw tight from clenching his teeth.

That has been his biggest problem with her really, how nasty she is to everyone – or at least, how nasty she tries to be. Making fun of someone for working at a diner doesn’t make any sense because he is actually working hard for his money, unlike Sophia. But to the people sitting at the table with him, they think it is hilarious.

But Liam is football captain, she is cheerleading captain. They are supposed to date. It is a thing.

A thing that is almost as stupid as salmon pancakes.

“Diner Boy is a real clever nickname. How long did it take for you to come up with that one?”

Liam grins slightly when he feels Sophia stiffen beside him. No one ever really talks back to her, even if this boy has a shake in his voice that matches the same one in his fingers.

Sophia clears her throat, eyes narrowing like the waiter’s. She isn’t equipped to handle people talking back to her and the constipated look on her face is a dead giveaway to that. “Whatever. Do you have ice cubes by any chance?”

“Er –“ The waiter’s face wrinkles some in confusion, eyes finding Liam’s for only a moment and Liam smirks because he understands. “Yeah.”

“Okay, three iced teas please. Four ice cubes in each.”

“Not fish flavored,” Liam jokes and the waiter looks at him again as he writes that down on his notepad. The slight quirk of his lips feels important and Liam isn’t sure why.

“What are you still doing here?” Sophia snaps before the waiter finishes writing. She turns those narrowed eyes to Liam, who ignores her as he watches the way the waiter stiffens and his eyes find the floor before he skates off.

Liam turns to look at her for a long moment, watching her roll her eyes and turn to Danielle immediately to whisper in her ear about the boy. They both giggle, and it makes Liam kind of sick because he doesn’t miss the mention of his skin color or the shake in his fingers, even though she is whispering.

“Budge over,” he says suddenly, pressing into Niall so he will push against Louis and allow him room to slide out of the booth. “I’m leaving.”

“Where are you going, babe? I thought we were going to my house before the dance?” Sophia wraps her fingers around his wrist to keep him there. Her eyes are wide and innocent, puppy like in a way that Liam used to have a hard time not giving into.

He doesn’t have that problem anymore though, and he shakes her off with a tired sigh. “We’re not. I have been trying to break up with you all day so I think our plans are off.”

He had been hoping not to end it that way, but he really doesn’t care. He just wants to get away from her and get closer to PrinceBoy. He wants to be around someone who he can actually be himself around.

That isn’t Sophia, who he only dates because it is socially appropriate, or Niall and Louis, who annoy him more times than not, or his father, who thinks anything other than football is an unacceptable plan for the future. Even if it is an unrealistic one.

He feels like Bruce Wayne, disguising himself to everyone and sneaking around as Batman. Except in this case, Batman (or Battyboy7 actually) is his true identity and Liam Payne is his disguise.

Liam wants to go to Princeton and study architect, and have someone he can talk about intellectual things with. He wants to kiss boys (well, specifically PrinceBoy) and not girls, no matter how good Sophia is with her tongue, and not worry about anyone making a big deal about it. He wants to take off his mask and be himself and not give a fuck about anyone else putting him down for it.

With PrinceBoy, he never even had to put the mask on. Not his Liam Payne football captain mask, at least.

Liam hears Sophia call his name as he heads towards the door, but he doesn’t turn around. Instead he stops when he spots their waiter, leaning over the counter and reaching for something behind it.

Liam nudges him on the shoulder, and watches as his eyes widen when they look back at him. He doesn’t recognize the waiter really, but he looks around the same age as him, about seventeen or eighteen which means they are probably in the same grade. He knows the waiter goes to the same school as him, because he has heard Niall frequently refer to someone as Diner Boy.

“M’sorry about them. Assholes, you know.”

The waiter shakes his head. He is quite pretty actually, with long, thick lashes and these eyes that Liam swears are gold colored but it could just be the light. His cheeks are round, but Liam can see where his face is thinning out with his sharp jaw and the ghost of sharp cheekbones. His lips are red and raw like he has been chewing on them and there is a watery look in his eyes that makes that twist in Liam’s stomach much worse.

“Oh, it’s no problem. Used to it, y’know.”

“That sucks dude,” Liam says sympathetically, hoping it sounds as genuine as he means it but he thinks it makes him sound like an asshole too.

The waiter’s face hardens instantly, eyes narrowing like earlier and it confirms Liam’s suspicions.

“I’m sorry – “ Liam hesitates, eyes glancing to where there should be a name tag but there isn’t one and the waiter’s lips are pressed tightly together like he isn’t going to give him one either. “I mean you really don’t deserve that.”

“You don’t know me, Liam,” the waiter says, rolling his eyes before he skates off again and Liam watches him go, frowning after him.

++

Zayn has been cleaning the same tile on the floor for at least five minutes now, but he doesn’t care. His knees are sore from digging into the hard floor, his arms tired from working all day and his chest is heavy with disappointment because he wants to be at the dance but instead he has to fucking work.

Lucy straight up told him no. He never asks her for anything, and the one time he does he gets turned down. _And he doesn’t even get paid to be here._ He should probably start looking into scholarships and grants because there is no way he can keep doing this. There is hardly anyone here too, so his chance of making tips is at a strong zero. He shouldn’t have been surprised about Lucy’s response, he knows better than to get his hopes up when it comes to asking her for something.

“What is on your mind, baby?” Caroline asks, voice concerned and warm just like a mother’s as she walks over towards him from where she had been washing down the booths.

Maybe it is a sign or something. They aren’t meant to meet. Maybe the universe is telling him that he had been right about turning down Battyboy every time he had asked them to meet. Battyboy isn’t his hero, or his Prince Charming, ready to save him from his hell of a life. And this is the universe’s way of making him realize that.

“Nothin’,” Zayn tells her, finally moving to a different part of the floor. He wonders if there is someplace they can hide a mop or something, because it takes him hours to clean the floor like this and he is probably going to have arthritis in his back by the time he is twenty three.

“Liar,” Caroline responds back simply, pulling away the bucket of soapy water so it is no longer in his reach. “C’mon. We got some pie left. Take a break and tell me about it.”

Zayn sighs, pushing up from the floor because it is evident in her face that she isn’t going to let him say no. No one says no to Caroline anyway.

“If you don’t want to be here, you know I won’t tell if you leave,” she says softly, running fingers through his hair. It is a comforting gesture that Caroline once told him she had seen his father do when he was seven and accidentally burnt his finger on the stove in the back.

“S’not that,” he mumbles, dragging himself over to the counter. The heavy feeling in his chest makes it’s way to his limbs and weighs him down like it is trying to drag him back down onto the floor. 

“Then out with it, boy. Tell me what is going on.”

The bell above the entrance chimes as she pushes the tray of pie down the counter towards him, saving him from responding when they both turn to see who it is. It is only Harry though, who strides in with his chest puffed out and Zayn has to muffle the laugh bubbling across his tongue because he looks absurd.

He wears a wrestling suit of some sort, with tight purple spandex pants wrapped around his thighs and a yellow mask pulled over his curls, hiding the top part of his face. He also has on a North Valley Wrestling Team shirt that hangs off his bony shoulders to pull the look together.

“What the fuck,” Zayn breathes, gaping at him. Caroline smacks him in the shoulder for cussing, but he can’t move his lips enough to form an apology. His mouth just hangs open as he gapes at his best friend.

“You said Sophia probably likes the jock type, right?” Harry gestures to his outfit, a proud grin on his face. “So I took wrestling and made it into a Halloween costume.”

“I think she likes football players,” Zayn clarifies slowly so Harry can follow. “Not Nacho Libre.”

Harry rolls his eyes, pulling the mask off his face so his curls spring free into a messy mop around his head. “Well, what are you going as? A waiter for Lucy’s Diner? That is cheating, dude.”

Zayn grimaces, taking a bit forkful of pie and shoving it into his mouth instead of responding. He doesn’t even like dancing, so it is fine. The last time he danced had been at Yaser and Lucy’s wedding, and Yaser had practically dragged him to the dancefloor for the son and father dance. It had been awkward and awful and his father kept pleading with him to get the grim look off his face that he had been wearing the whole time.

So it is fine, he doesn’t want to embarrass himself the first time he meets Battyboy anyway.

“You are _kidding_ ,” Harry gasps when he realizes what the look on Zayn’s face means. He strides over and rips the fork away from him before he can shove more pie into his already full mouth. “You’re not going? But what about your boyfriend?”

Zayn shoves him hard, glaring at him as he swallows down the pie so he will get the hint to shut the fuck up. But it is too late, Caroline’s interest is caught. He had planned on coming up with some lie about being irritated with Lucy because Caroline can always tell when he is lying, and that isn’t a lie.

“Who?” She interrupts. Her eyebrows raise high towards her hairline as she looks between them. “What are you going on about, boy?”

Harry gives Zayn an apologetic look before turning to her to explain. “There is a Halloween dance tonight, and Zayn here has a date, and I am pretty sure he really likes them.”

She lights up, clapping her hands together excitedly. She is always nagging Zayn about dating, and when he is going to bring someone to the diner for them all to meet. Zayn is sure meeting someone online he doesn’t know wasn’t exactly what she meant, and he hopes Harry doesn’t mention that part.

“Is that why you looked so bummed?” she asks, rubbing his shoulder. “You should have told me, sunshine. Go ‘head and leave. Go dance with your boy, I will take care of things here.”

“I – but Lucy is coming ‘round twelve to pick me up,” Zayn reminds her. Lucy has once again taken his car because he put up a fuss about having to come into work after school and then complained about having to drive him places.

Caroline waves him off. “Just be back here before then. The only person that comes around after eight is Old Phil and he is a regular. He gets the same tilapia sandwich every night. The boys and I have it covered.”

Zayn looks between Caroline and Harry, who is nodding encouragingly, biting around a grin that makes his dimples pop out of his cheeks. “I don’t have a costume.”

“Shut it, Malik,” Harry groans, grabbing his arm and tugging him from the stool. “You have that one from last year, remember? The one you wore to my parents Halloween party?”

“I might kiss you,” Zayn says, grabbing Harry’s shoulders because that is the perfect costume. Maybe he was wrong about the universe’s intentions.

 

It isn’t that perfect of a costume actually, because the suit it hot as shit and kind of heavy and bulky feeling. And as he steps inside the school’s auditorium he realizes he might just look like the biggest nerd on the planet and it’s not discreet, which doesn’t help the whole being invisible thing.

At least there is a mask that covers most of his face, so no one really should know who the nerd is. Everything is covered except for his eyes, jaw and mouth, but Harry had scribbled on a beard on his jaw to make him look more manly, or whatever.

His teeth dig into his bottom lip as he makes his way to the crowd of people. He hopes Battyboy likes the fact that he dressed up as Batman as much as Zayn thinks he will, since they have spent hours on hours talking about Battyboy’s Batman collection. Obsession would be a better word for it really, and Zayn thinks it is adorable. Especially when he gets embarrassed and sends the monkey with his hands over his eyes emoticon.

Zayn felt the same way when he told him about all of the fairy tale drawings in his sketchpads, and how he started doodling superheroes alongside them because Zayn was never able to get Battyboy out of his mind.

Harry puffs out his chest beside him as he presses a hand to Zayn’s lower back to urge him forward faster. “Sophia is right there, do you see her? I’m going to make my move. Wish me luck, yeah?”

Zayn finds her in the crowd, eyes clenched close and waving her hands about frantically and he wants to tell Harry that she is clearly crying because of the way the disco ball’s lights reflect off her wet cheeks, but he doesn’t think the situation would turn out good for Harry even if she wasn’t.

“Aren’t you worried about her boyfriend? Liam has some muscles, man,” he says instead because even though he hasn’t actually ever seen Liam hurt anyone off of the field, Zayn is pretty sure he is capable of doing so.

Harry narrows his eyes at him. “I guess you would know, since you stare at them all the time.”

Zayn shoves him away and towards the crowd more, his face warming instantly because it is not exactly a lie. But it is not his fault though, okay? His dick doesn’t have any sense of morals and Harry needs to let it go.

“Plus,” Harry says sheepishly, scanning the crowd quickly. “I don’t see him anywhere, so I should probably make my move quickly before he shows up.”

“Remember the plan,” he reminds Harry instead of commenting on that. He holds out his arm and mimes tapping a watch against his wrist. The alarm is set on his phone, which is shoved into a pocket that thankfully the Batman suit came with in the hard plastic of the chest. All of his father’s watches have been given to his step brothers, but at least his step mother allowed him to have a cell phone so she can call him into work whenever she wants to. “Be at your car, 11:55 sharp.”

Harry nods in understanding, face set serious before he winks and slips away without another word. It had taken them awhile to find the costume and put it on because Zayn’s chest has gotten a bit broader over the year, and it took a long time for Harry to convince Zayn to get out of the passenger seat of his car and walk into the building in the first place, so it is nearly eleven now and time is racing by.

Zayn stays rooted in his spot despite the time, closing his eyes and sucking in as much air as he can until his heart feels like it relaxes some before he exhales. He can do this. Easy, all he has to do is walk to the middle of the dance floor –

“Er,” he mumbles to himself, scanning the crowd. His classmates are all pressed tightly together, wiggling and shaking against each other and Zayn can’t quite make out where the middle of the dancefloor is.

It is a tight squeeze through his classmates, especially with the bulky costume. It’s uncomfortable since his waist down is covered in only a thin spandex material and he practically feels every person he touches through them, but he manages to get underneath the colorful disco ball hanging from the ceiling in one piece. He assumes that would be in the middle of the dance floor, and there is a little more room here for him to stand awkwardly by himself.

He pulls off the gloves that came with the suit to wipe the sweat off of his palms and onto his pants as he looks nervously around at the people dancing around him. The two of them didn’t even think this through properly. Is he supposed to just go up to everyone asking them if they are Battyboy or should he go up to everyone and introduce himself as PrinceBoy -

“Ant? Come look at this nerd –“

Zayn stiffens immediately as a hand curls around his shoulder and he is yanked back some. He recognizes that voice and the voice the follows as it cackles. They have tormented him the same way for the past nine years, Danny will make a joke and Ant will cackle at everything he says -

He grits his teeth, sliding his hands up to secure the mask on his face before he turns to face his step brothers. Danny’s hair is shaved to the scalp and there is a shit eating grin on his face like he gets before he tortures someone. Danny is wearing something similar to the tracksuit Harry wore the other day, but it is royal blue instead of red and he wears a thick, gold chain around his neck. It is unbuttoned, revealing his chest and the few hairs he actually has there.

Ant is wearing a matching suit, but his hair is longer at the top and he has made sure to keep the jacket buttoned to his throat.

“Are you serious?” Danny cackles, flicking Zayn’s chest, which is covered in a harder plastic that makes up the Batman symbol. “Take your mask off, let me see what kind of nerd –“

“Yeah, aren’t you hot dude?” Ant wrinkles his nose as he pinches the lip of Zayn’s mask and makes it snap back against his skin.

Zayn wants to tell them to fuck off, but there is a chance they may recognize his voice. Well, Zayn really doubts it but he doesn’t want to risk it. He only grits his teeth harder and takes a step back when Danny reaches forward to flick him in the chest again.

“Problem here?”

The change in their expressions is instant. Their lips part in sync, their eyes widening and brightening in amazement and Zayn cringes, because his step brothers only makes that love struck face around one person. _Everyone_ makes that same expression for one person -

“Liam Payne,” Danny gasps, fixing the collar of his obnoxious suit so it looks even more ridiculous. He eases a grin on his face that might be meant to look flirtatious but really makes him look constipated and creepy. “There is no problem here.”

“Yeah, just um, talking to Batty here,” Ant goes on. He slides his teeth against his bottom lip and wiggles his eyebrows some and Zayn would laugh if he didn’t feel sick.

Zayn looks straight ahead between the two boys in front of him, not wanting to turn and look at Liam because this night is going to shit and he is pretty sure it is already past eleven and he probably missed Battyboy. Now he is stuck between three of the people he hates the most. He might as well just ask Sophia, Louis and Niall to join them and throw a tease Zayn Malik party.

“Good, than would you excuse us please?”

Danny glares at him, and Zayn is thankful for the mask even more. He is the definition of a bully, going around the school and shoving other kids around for their lunch money. Zayn has the joy of being his favorite victim and if Danny knew it was him, it would get worse. There is a reason it is his and Ant’s face that make up the evil characters he draws.

“Save me a dance for later?” Danny asks, raising an eyebrow and Zayn stomach curls but he isn’t sure why.

“No me,” Ant urges, turning his glare to his brother.

“Eh, I don’t know.”

A hand comes to his elbow as Danny and Ant walk away, arguing as they go. Zayn has no choice but to turn. He sucks in a breath, turning slowly and bracing himself for whatever comment Liam is going to make about what a nerd he is.

There is a grin on his lips, though and it isn’t a malicious one. His head is tilted to the side like he is curious and there is nothing in his face to suggest that he is going to make fun of him.

And never in a million years would Zayn expect it to be Liam that says, “PrinceBoy?”

Zayn stares. He just stares at the way Liam’s beautiful annoying lips form his username. His cheeks are flushed, his curls tamed for once and Zayn makes his eyes drag lower because Liam is looking at him with such an overwhelmed but soft expression and he can’t make sense of what just happened. He considers digging in his ears to clean them out and making Liam repeat himself.

Liam is dressed as a prince, clearly, with a grass green colored jacket with gold leaves embroidered wrapped around his shoulders. The stiff collar reaches high up his neck, which is wrapped in a silky blue material. His pants are black with gold seams down the legs, and he wears white gloves that contrast where they press against the black of Zayn’s costume, still holding his elbow like he is afraid he might run off.

Zayn is considering it.

“I um –“ Liam grins even more, eyes brightening. The streams of light from the disco ball reflect in them and Zayn finds himself staring, because they are quite beautiful too and he has never gotten close enough to Liam to see them clearly. They are a rich brown color, like the chocolate mousse Caroline sneaks him after a particularly rough day. “That would be pretty cool yeah? I’m Prince Charming, you’re Batman. Like, a reverse of our screennames.”

Zayn chuckles weakly, teeth digging into his lower lip as he nods. Relief coats Liam’s face at his anticlimactic attempt at admitting that he is PrinceBoy, but Zayn feels anything but that. Confusion, shock - or fear maybe, that this is some cruel prank and Niall and Louis are going to jump out from the crowd cackling at him.

Because there is no way this is real. He has never had a face for Battyboy when he had drawn him, and Zayn had always tried to ignore the way his character’s features resembled the boy in front of him. Because it had never been on purpose, it was just because he had never been able to get rid of the annoying crush he had on him -

“Liam,” Liam blurts suddenly, pulling his hand away from Zayn’s elbow so he can hold it in front of him. It is super awkward, really and Zayn might explode but he hopes the hard plastic of his costume keeps him together. “My name is Liam Payne.”

“I um, know who you are.”

Stupid – Zayn grimaces, eyes clenching shut as he cusses quietly to himself and he isn’t sure how much of his expression Liam can see through the mask but he can’t help it. Despite his long time dislike for Liam, his heart still beats rapidly in his chest and he has an urge to rest his cheek against his chest and plant his lips to the other boy’s because that is _his_ Battyboy. Somehow stupid football captain Liam Payne with his crinkly eyes and annoying muscles is his Battyboy.

Liam grimaces too. He cups a hand around the back of his neck and there is an apology in his eyes. “Um, you do? Is that a bad thing?”

Zayn shakes his head quickly, reaching for Liam before he can stop himself. Battyboy – Liam, has told him over and over how he has to hide behind a fake image because it is what is expected of him. The look on his face makes him want to believe this isn’t a joke or game being played on him.

It just – it is so difficult to understand that and put Liam and Battyboy as one and in the same in his head. But he wants to comfort the fearful look on Liam’s face, even though Liam Payne never bothered to comfort him.

Battyboy always does.

“No. I just mean, how could I not know who you are? I think all of North Valley knows who you are.”

Liam’s expression relaxes some, but not enough that Zayn feels better. He cups Zayn’s elbow again briefly, before his hand slides to Zayn’s lower back and Zayn cusses at himself for a second time because he can barely feel the warmth of Liam’s hand through the material of his costume.

“Do you want to go outside? Talk a bit or somethin’? It’s loud in here, y’know?”

He finds the clock across the room, reading twelve minutes past eleven, before he nods. Maybe it would be less awkward if it was just the two of them, and they weren’t surrounded by all of their classmates staring at them here and there while they grind against each other.

“Um, yeah. Sounds alright.”

They fall into a silence after that. He doesn’t see Harry anywhere, but he keeps his eyes focused on the floor most of the way out of the auditorium. Liam keeps a firm hand on his back, and Zayn can feel him glancing at him every so often as if he is waiting for Zayn to pick up the conversation.

He doesn’t think he can, because his tongue feels thick and swollen in his mouth and he can’t remember how to form words. Like in the sixth grade, when he stood in front of the class to give some presentation on Bengal tigers and all he could feel was Liam’s eyes on him, making his words come out choked and jumbled.

The air outside is much cooler than the sweaty auditorium and the white Christmas lights hanging over the sidewalk leading away from the entrance lights up the dark, inky sky. It is prettier than the other side of the building, which is decorated in gravestones and pumpkin lanterns, with plastic skeletons and cobwebs dangling from the trees.

“Are you going to make me guess who you are?” Liam asks softly, looking to him with a teasing grin after a long moment. Zayn’s breath catches in his throat because under the lights, his eyes look as if they could be gold or something -

Zayn shrugs, contemplating. He doesn’t want to tell Liam at all really that he is Diner Boy, who his girlfriend and best friends constantly rag on and he kind of hates Liam because Liam never stepped in and told them to shut up. (Which in Zayn’s opinion that is just as bad as doing the bullying yourself.)

“I don’t think you will be able to,” Zayn tells him quietly, chuckling to cover up the sad sound of his voice. The worst part is, as much as Liam has seen him get teased, he doesn’t even think he remembers him.

Liam frowns, thick brows wrinkling together and the look on determination on his face is sort of really adorable. “Let me try, yeah? I’ll ask you twenty questions?”

He shrugs again, because unless he asks _do my friends torture you because you work at the diner that always smells like fish_ , he is pretty sure Liam won’t figure it out.

But that might be his fault, because he works hard at being invisible. And he wants to remain that way.

“Okay,” Liam says thoughtfully. “I know you are a senior here. Have you always lived in North Valley?”

Zayn nods, moving a little closer to Liam until their shoulders knock together. He smells good, like soap and a hint of a cologne that resembles the one his father used to wear.

“And you have always gone to school here?”

Zayn nods again, peering up at Liam. The mask feels like it is sticking to his face, irritating his skin like it is begging to be pulled off but it is a security blanket, comforting him and keeping him from running off. The whole situation is awkward and he wishes there were some kind of manual on how to properly meet someone you have been talking to online while simultaneously having a hate crush on them.

Liam’s face crumples together as he frowns. “And we have never spoken before?”

He stops, facing Liam so he can look at the flush in his cheeks. Liam pulls Zayn’s hands into his, the silk of the gloves smooth against his skin. “We have.”

“You don’t like me much, huh?” Liam looks a bit apologetic again and he looks away from Zayn and down between the two of them. Zayn watches his thumb graze over the dove tattoo he has inked on the back of his hand and he wants to rip the gloves off so he can feel Liam’s bare skin against his own.

“Well, like you said,” he starts nervously. He drags a tongue over his bottom lip before he continues, because his lips are just as dry as his throat. “You have to be someone you’re not. I don’t like the someone you’re not.”

Liam grins slightly when he pulls his eyes away from their hands and looks at him again. “You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?”

Zayn shakes his head adamantly, pulling his hand away from Liam’s so he can rub a thumb against his smooth jaw. Liam nuzzles into it instantly, eyes brightening. It feels good – right. “Nah.”

“My friends – have they ever made fun of you? They tend to do that sometimes.”

Zayn swallows thickly, pulling his hand away. He doesn’t want to answer, but Liam grimaces at him like the answer is written on his face. He links their fingers together again, tugging Liam down the rest of the path where there sits a white wooden gazebo at the end. It too is covered in Christmas lights. Other than the library, it is one of Zayn’s favorite spots to disappear too during the period he has off, because he can usually get away with smoking here.

“Would you believe me if I said I’m sorry? And that I hate that they are so mean I – I just am shit at standing up to them.”

There is a vulnerability and a guilt in his voice that Zayn would have sworn an hour ago would be impossible for Liam Payne to ever exhibit. He has an urge to comfort him again, not just his Battyboy, but Liam Payne – another thing that Zayn thought would never be possible.

“I do,” Zayn tells him softly, pulling him into the middle of the gazebo. The music can still be heard from inside, something slow and old. A song that reminds him of him when he was young, and used to sneak the radio into his bedroom to listen to Pop Hits because all the kids knew about that music and he didn’t because his parents always made him listen to their music.

_The strands in your eyes that color them wonderful, stop me and steal my breath –_

Liam holds out his hands, palms facing up and his face glowing from the lights surrounding them. “They finally are playing a slow song. Would only be proper for us to dance, right?”

Zayn snorts, wrinkling his nose like he isn’t sure about that. But he is, because he has already started to become addicted to touching the other boy. “If you can ask properly, maybe.”

It is a tease, just to ease the tension and the flutter of his heart but Liam puffs out his chest and takes a step back, hooking his arm in front of him before he bends over like a proper prince. “May I have this dance?”

Zayn takes the hand held out towards him, watching the way his fingers shake before they wrap around Liam’s gloved ones. Liam straightens and comes closer to cup his other hand to Zayn’s waist. It feels ridiculous, completely crazy if anyone were to see Batman and Prince Charming dancing together even though they are at a Halloween dance, but it is close enough to the only thing Zayn has wanted as much as getting out of this town for the past two months.

_Tell me that we belong together, dress it up with the trappings of love -_

“That is question number eight,” Zayn tells him softly. They aren’t so much dancing as kind of stepping back and forth in the same place, slightly swaying their bodies but it is perfect, really. There is a fond, goofy smile on Liam’s lips and it reminds him of the one he used to imagine whenever he spoke to Battyboy. His imagination just didn’t do it justice. He is kind of in love with it.

_I’ll be your crying shoulder -_

Liam wrinkles his nose, pulling Zayn closer abruptly so their chests bump together, making Zayn stumble a bit. The grip Liam has on his hip is tight though, secure, keeping him in place and stitching their bodies together.

“Okay, next question. Is meeting me as bad as you thought it would be?”

“No,” Zayn whispers in response, tilting his head some. He thought it would be someone he hates, and it is – but that seems to matter less and less with each passing moment. “I didn’t think it would be bad, I was just nervous. I am kind of a nobody and you are like, the most popular kid here. That makes me more nervous and kind of like, makes me want to keep the mask on?”

Liam brings their movements to a halt, fingers digging into his hip. The fingers on his other hand press under his chin, tilting his head so Zayn has to look up at him.

_I’ll be better when I’m older, I’ll be the greatest fan of your life –_

“I told ya, didn’t I? You are the only person that I can be myself with. You are the farthest thing from a nobody to me.”

His hand flattens against his jaw, his palm warm against Zayn’s and he nuzzles into it, trying to capture as much of his warmth as he can so it can seep into his body and relax the buzz that lingers through his limbs. “Just hard to wrap my head around, I guess.”

Liam nods, tongue wetting his lips as his eyes drop down to Zayn’s. “Would it be okay if I like – kissed you? It is kind of hard um – I can’t stop thinking about it, actually. It is distracting me from coming up with proper questions.”

He chuckles at himself, eyes lifting to connect with Zayn’s. _I’ll be captivated, I’ll hang from your lips -_

“You have a girlfriend.”

_Instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above -_

The words seem to irritate the calm settling around them but Liam doesn’t seem phased, shaking his head with a grin still planted on those ridiculous lips. Zayn remembers the first time he ever thought about kissing them, during that same presentation in the sixth grade. Liam had been talking about rabbits or something. He can’t really remember, because it had been distracting the way Liam continuously licked at it his lips as he spoke.

“I broke up with her today,” Liam tells him, guiding them back some. He looks far too happy about it and Zayn definitely feels the same way. “It was superficial, our relationship. And she is mean to people, for no reason, you know? I didn’t want to pretend that I didn’t bother me any longer.”

Zayn runs his hands up Liam’s chest when he feels his back hit something hard. Probably the side of the gazebo, but he really doesn’t care what it is because Liam is pressing his body closer to his and trapping him against it with gentle hands.

(Another thing he used to imagine when he stayed up late talking to Battyboy, except there were usually a lot fewer clothes involved and he was wearing Batman boxers not a Batman costume.)

“I’m counting that as a question,” Zayn says quietly, eyes lingering on Liam’s lips when he licks them again. Maybe it was a sign, all those times he caught himself thinking about what it would be like to taste _Liam’s_ lips even though he disliked him. Like soul mate intuition shit or something. “Because it counts as a hint.”

Liam pushes those lips out into a pout, taunting him further. “Not fair. Will you at least tell me why it counts as a hint?”

“Thirteen,” Zayn tells him with a smirk. His heart picks up when Liam’s thumb presses under the lip of the mask, pulling it away from his cheekbone but he takes it away after only a moment. “Would it make up for it if I said it was okay that you kissed me?”

“You don’t play fair,” Liam mutters before he ducks his head forward some, and Zayn doesn’t have enough time to catch his breath before Liam’s lips are grazing against his. They are soft when they fit against Zayn’s, and sweet tasting when he swipes his tongue across the lower, like Liam spent the majority of his time before meeting up with him at the punch bowl table.

Liam’s body is hard against his own, but his fingers soft where they rub against the skin of his jaw and the material covering his hip, pulling him flushed to Liam’s front while at the same time pressing him harder against the wood of the gazebo. The taste of fruit punch against his tongue is intoxicating when he rubs it against Zayn’s, and it might just be his new favorite flavor –

He doesn’t want Liam to take off the mask because if he does the hope he has that his Liam is not the same as the Liam he always knew might vanish. If Liam realizes he has been chatting up Diner Boy. There is deceit in his username, because he is nothing like a prince but a pauper maybe –

Liam pulls away, resting their foreheads together as he exhales out harshly. Zayn is practically covered in sweat underneath his suit and he considers ripping it off, but that might call attention to the fact that he is already semi hard from like a minute of kissing Liam.

“I have wanted to do that for a long time. Was that okay?”

Zayn grins goofily, sliding an arm around Liam’s broad shoulders to pull him closer. Harry was right, he is love sick. “You can do it as much as you want, really.”

“Yeah?” Liam asks hopefully, raising an eyebrow and Zayn nods, pushing forward to slot their lips together again. The music fades into white noise, and it would be so easy to just pretend this little gazebo covered in lights that look like stars is their own little world. So easy, just to tug the mask off. But once he does, he has to go back to reality.

Liam’s teeth nip at his bottom lip, tugging it into his mouth some, making Zayn grow low in his throat. He pulls Liam closer so he gets the hint and presses him harder into the surface behind him. He is nearing a danger zone, and trusts Liam enough to drag him into it.

Liam groans when he pulls away for a second time, fingers sliding back up his cheek to thumb at the lip of his mask like he can’t help it. “Can I take it off?”

It is a bit desperate like, his eyes wide and blown out in an urgent way. As much as he wants to say yes, Zayn shakes his head. There is panic gripping at his chest and making the butterflies in his stomach turn into something sour feeling. “You still have four questions left.”

“’Cause you’re a cheater,” Liam jokes breathlessly, not deterred any. He rests an arm on the wood over Zayn’s head, leaning down at him and sliding his thumb across Zayn’s skin as he contemplates another question. “Have I changed your mind about the Liam Payne you knew?”

He doesn’t have to contemplate his answer before he nods. “You’re not him, you’re my Battboy.”

Liam nods, biting around a smile. His cheeks are so pink and Zayn wants to yank off the prince get up and see if the rest of his skin is the same pretty shade. “So maybe you can see that it is possible for me to do the same with you?”

Zayn slides his palms back down Liam’s chest. “You don’t have any thoughts about me from before to change.”

He frowns again, his eyebrows pushing together. “How do you know that?”

It is hard to explain, so he doesn’t. Instead he leans forward, letting their lips move together once more. Liam doesn’t hesitate in reciprocating; kissing him until he is breathless and the work shirt underneath his suit clings to his skin. Until he is gripping Liam’s hips tightly to keep them pressed against his, even though he is careful to remain still because his cock throbs under the spandex material.

Until the announcer inside the auditorium’s voice sounds for the announcement of king and queen and Zayn remembers that he doesn’t really have all night to muck around with Liam, no matter how much he wants to.

“You have more question,” Zayn huffs out when he pulls away, dragging his fingers down Liam’s sides and wondering if he can feel the burn of his skin through the thick material of his shirt, because all Zayn can feel is Liam’s warmth. It is overwhelming and suffocating in a good way, like when he used to trap himself underneath his blankets whenever there was an earthquake, only allowing a tiny opening for his nose and mouth.

Liam bites around his grin, eyes dark and blown out as his fingers scrape across the skin of his jaw, pushing under the start of his mask again. His thumb drags across Zayn’s lower lip, swollen and probably purpled from the pressure of Liam’s kiss.

“What is your name?”

He hadn’t expected that question, as obvious as it seems and his lips part in surprise. Nothing comes out of them as his mind whirrs for a witty response, but really he should just stop being afraid and tell Liam his name.  

“I um,” Zayn chokes out, feeling his expression form into something like regret.

There is a vibration against his chest that makes him gasp and the muffled sound of Carly Rae Jepson’s _I Really Like You_ makes him scramble to pull out his cellphone. _11:55 –_ he completely forgot to keep track of time.

“Fuck,” Zayn yelps, smacking his forehead with the palm of his head quickly. Liam looks at Zayn expectantly, waiting for an explanation on what is wrong. “I’m so sorry, really. But I have to go –“

“But, why –“

Liam keeps his hands on Zayn for a moment, while Zayn smacks a messy kiss to his lips once more to muffle his words before he takes off. He wants to look back, but if he does he will probably stay in the damn gazebo with Liam because it is better than anything else waiting for him.

The suit is heavy and hard to run in, making him breathe hard through his nose even though he isn’t moving very fast. The comfort and happiness he felt with Liam is crashing around him, and quickly being replaced with panic and adrenaline as he jogs through the parking lot towards where Harry parked his father’s car.

“Fuck,” Zayn gasps, resting an arm against the passenger door when he gets to it. He feels like he just ran a mile and he hates this damn costume. Harry isn’t here yet, and the panic is rushing into his throat like he might be sick.

“I’m coming!” Harry shouts from across the parking lot. The car is so old it doesn’t have a clicker, but Zayn still tugs impatiently on the door handle like he is strong enough to actually force it open. “Fuck, sorry.”

Zayn has the door open the moment he hears the click of the unlock button and he slides into the seat before Harry even gets his open. It would be his luck that Lucy came to pick him up early for once. Or on time, for that matter.

“Drive,” he orders, shucking on his seatbelt and trying not to get irritated with his best friend when he fumbles too many times with the keys as he tries to get them into the ignition.

“Sorry,” Harry sputters, pulling out of the parking spot quickly. His mask is gone, his hair a complete wreck around his head and there is lipstick smeared all over his mouth.

“You’re kidding,” Zayn gasps, reaching over to wipe the lipstick off with his thumb to make sure it is real. He feels a bit better, now that they are driving since the diner is really only three minutes away and he hadn’t seen his step mother’s car in the parking lot, which means she hadn’t picked up her step brother’s yet. At least, he thinks because it doesn’t end for another thirty minutes.

“Not Sophia,” Harry says, but there is a proud grin on his lips as he wiggles his eyebrows. “Cara. The school news reporter. Do you know her? The one with the colorful hair? She does the announcements every morning?”

Zayn can’t quite remember, but he gapes at Harry anyway like he can’t believe it. He knows her voice from the morning announcements, but he isn’t sure that he has ever actually seen what she looks like before.

“What?” Harry says defensively, shrugging some. “She thought my outfit was cute.”

He keeps his _bullshit_ to himself, because he doesn’t want to ruin the happy grin on his best friend’s face. He doesn’t know Cara, but if she is even an ounce kinder than Sophia than Zayn is happy for him.

And relieved, because if Harry was making out with Sophia while he was making out with Liam Payne that that would prove that the universe is definitely playing games with him. 

“Anyway,” Harry says, glancing at him quickly. “BoyfriendBoy7?”

His stomach curls, his chest tight. He misses Liam already and he tugs off the Batman mask roughly because it is suffocating him. He might just burn it so he can pretend this night never happened. It wasn’t enough time. They barely had an hour together. “You mean Liam Payne?”

Zayn thinks he should have kept his mouth quiet because Harry swerves into the next lane, where there is thankfully not another car.

“What?” Harry screams, taking his eyes away from the road for far too long and Zayn has to hit him hard in the shoulder to get him to focus on the road. “What?”

“Harry!” Zayn yells as he nearly hits the curb before screeching into the parking lot. Zayn presses a hand to his chest, trying to calm the fear making his chest beat rapidly. This is why he always insists on being the one to drive them to school.

“Sorry,” Harry breathes, pulling into a parking space.  His eyes are round and huge, and he looks almost as overwhelmed as Zayn feels. “That is pretty serious, dude. Remember when you had the biggest crush on him in middle school?”

“Yeah, well,” Zayn trails off, unbuckling his seatbelt. He feels weighed down and it isn’t just because his suit is so heavy. “I didn’t tell him who I was, and I don’t plan on it.”

He gets out of the car quickly as if that is going to end the conversation, but Harry is behind him in an instant, following him as he makes his way to the diner.

“What do you mean? He is like your nerd soulmate -”

“It’s Liam Payne,” Zayn reminds him roughly, turning on his heel so Harry can see the hard expression on his face that means shut up.

Harry gives him a soft look, reaching out to pat his shoulder. He should understand, because all of the times he has listened to Zayn rant about how much he hates the people at North Valley, especially Liam and his friends. “You will change your mind, I’m sure. Just think about it, yeah? Maybe you need some time. People aren’t always who they seem and Liam was never really mean, he just like – didn’t stop other people from being mean.”

Zayn just shrugs before he pushes through the front door and gives Harry a half-hearted wave goodbye. He believes Liam when Liam tells him he has been pretending to be that guy Zayn hates all these years, but it is difficult to get out the curl in his stomach when he even thinks the name Liam Payne –

Because back in middle school, he didn’t realize the difference between crushes and the love he remembered his parents having. And back in middle school, when Liam never said anything to Louis when he constantly picked on him, he realized maybe hate would be a better word for how he feels for him. And that feeling has always stuck with him, stronger than the stupid crush.

“Zayn!”

Caroline grabs his arm roughly before practically dragging him through the diner. “Lucy is here and I told her you were out back ‘cause you know she won’t go out there. Paul put your uniform pants out there, go ‘head.”

She nearly shoves him outside where he goes to smoke every morning. He quickly pulls off the top part of his costume and shucks the uniform pants over the spandex of his costume. He can hear the annoying clatter of Lucy’s heels against the tile floor and her high pitched screech of a voice coming closer.

“Go tell that boy to get in here quick, Caroline. What is taking him so long? I have to be at the school -”

Caroline gives him a moment to press his hands to his face and catch his breath before she urges him to get back inside. He does reluctantly, with his feet dragging and eyes finding the floor instead of looking at his step mother. He learned a long time ago that looking at her plastic face for too long makes his nightmares even scarier.

“What were you even doing back there? Aren’t you supposed to be working? You know, it doesn’t even matter. Come with me, we are going to pick up your brothers.”

Lucy digs her talon shaped nails into his shoulder and it feels like tiny knives digging into his skin. She reeks of old lady perfume and her eggshell colored shirt is so tight that her breasts nearly pop out of the top of it. Her face looks like someone pressed an iron to her cheeks, shiny and tight, and her lips are more than full. They are bloated looking, like a blown up balloon.

“I want you to be there when they talk about how they won Homecoming Kings.”

Zayn rolls his eyes but follows with a quick wave to Caroline, whose eyes are wide and worrisome. He doubts Danny and Ant were even a consideration for Homecoming King.

When they get to the school, Lucy pulls in front of the entrance where there is a small crowd of students gathered, waiting for their rides. Zayn sits in the back, trying to make himself as small as possible when he spots Liam walking out, with a plastic, golden crown planted in those messy curls and one held tightly in his hand. It makes him look like a proper prince and it tugs tightly at Zayn’s chest.

Of course he won Homecoming King. Everyone loves him, Liam Payne – and they don’t even know him. They would dislike him if they did, and that thought makes Zayn hate everyone more.

His phone vibrates, and he doesn’t check it because he knows it is Liam because he watches him pull out his cellphone as he makes his way across the parking lot to the Jeep.

Zayn barely notices when his step brothers get into the car, and he tones out their excessive chatter about the dance and how upset they were because Liam Payne and some guy in a Batman costume won Homecoming Kings.

When they get to the house, he practically runs upstairs to the attic despite his step mother calling his name. He curls up on his bed with his sketchpad and a pencil held too tightly between his fingers, making the lines too dark as he sketches out Liam as his Prince Charming.

++

Liam falls into his bed, tugging the comforter into his neck before scrolling through the messages pulled up on his phone. He aches, like he just had a particularly bad football practice but he had barely moved all night. Just one dance.

PrinceBoy still doesn’t have a face, only a sharp jawline coated in some sort of ink that made a mock beard and these eyes that are an amber color that reminds him of the whiskey his father drinks every night before bed. They are surrounded by thick lashes and Liam swears there is no way they could have met before because there is no way he would ever forget eyes like that. And his soft pink lips, that were purple and swollen when he pulled away from them.

And he doesn’t have a name either, only a voice with a hint of an accent he can’t quite place, and hesitancy that Liam isn’t sure is good or bad.

Bad, maybe because it is clear Liam, or his friends, have had an effect on him somehow.

But good, maybe, because he kissed him back and on his own and admitted to seeing him differently than he has before.

Liam rubs a thumb against his lips, imagining the way PrinceBoy’s felt against his own. He sighs, rereading his last message over and over again. It’s a simple ‘hope everything is okay’ because Princeboy had rushed away quite fast, but it has gone unanswered for nearly twenty minutes now and that is unlike him.

The Homecoming King’s crowns sit on his bookshelf and he smiles at what the announcer lady had told him, how she spotted them walking out together and thought it was cute. Like a proper couple.

It felt like they could be a proper couple. They fit together nicely against the gazebo’s support beam, despite the bulky Batman suit and his itchy prince costume. Their lips moved like they have been practicing the perfect kiss for years, and it just – felt really fucking good to be with him, finally.

Liam pulls out of his thoughts when his phone dings and he sees the blue message slide onto the screen.

_PrinceBoy: yes sry step moms a right bitch about curfew had a good nite tho x_

He hesitates before responding, because he is constantly worried about being a nag. (Though, not really since he keeps doing it anyway). But if PrinceBoy wanted him to know his name really, he would have shouted it back at Liam or something, right?

_Battyboy7: u nvr told me ur name :’(_

The floating dots appear instantly as PrinceBoy types out his response, and though it is probably only a few seconds before the message comes through, to Liam it feels like forever.

_PrinceBoy: Goodnite my Prince Charming ^-^_

He falls back against the pillow with a long groan. There is no way he is giving up on this. He has to do something to figure out who he is, but he just doesn’t know where to start. He literally has nothing to go by -

When the idea comes to him, he scrambles out of his bed, pulling on a pair of joggers before he tip toes down to his father’s computer room.

++

Zayn drags his feet across the pavement, scrolling through some of his first messages with Liam, trying to find anything that could have clued him in on Battboy7 being Liam.

There isn’t anything really. It is like they are two different people says the front of his mind, but in the back a quieter voice tells him that he never really tried to get to know Liam because he had made opinions about him before giving him the chance.

It is Monday morning, and he is dreading going to school because he knows he will run into Liam. And when he does, he will have to witness Liam remaining quiet as Niall and Louis pick fun at him again. He had spent the weekend trying not to think about that, distracting himself by drawing and his face burns red when he remembers the not so innocent sketches he made with Liam’s face. Even if no one else knows about it, it is still embarrassing to think about.

“Holy shit,” Harry gasps under his breath and Zayn walks into the back of him when he stills in the entrance to the school.

“Watch where you’re going,” Zayn grumbles, rubbing his chin because it knocked into Harry’s bony body roughly.

Harry just looks down at him with wide, amused eyes. Zayn frowns at him, shoving past him and inside where he stops dead in his tracks because Harry had it right, _holy shit._

Nearly the whole front lobby is covered in pale blue posters and he can see some down one of the hallways, plastered to the gray lockers. There are bold letters taking up the top half of the flyers, spelling out ‘Have U Seen Batman?’

“What the hell,” Zayn breathes, pulling down one that is close enough for him to reach for. There are words underneath the header, in a smaller font describing a dove tattoo on the left hand and Zayn cusses quietly at himself before he shoves the flyer into his bag.

“If you think about it, it is kind of romantic,” Harry says, nudging him encouragingly before Zayn stalks off towards the hallway where their lockers are located. It too is decorated in a sea of pale blue and Zayn is going to throw up if every hallway in the school is like this. “Like actual Prince Charming, going around the village with a shoe trying to find his Cinderella.”

“Fuck off,” Zayn groans, tugging off one of the flyers that sticks to his locker door. It makes his heart race seeing it, and not really in a bad way. A good way, because Liam really wants to know who he is which means he hadn’t mucked it up on Friday, but that also means that it could be even worse if Liam found out who he was. Because he is going to all these lengths to find Diner Boy -

“Come on,” Harry tries, leaning against the locker next to him. “I know you like those fairy tales and shit.”

“Those aren’t real, Haz. There is no once upon a time and happily ever after, only far, far away which is where Princeton is and that is what I need to focus on.”

Harry rolls his eyes, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I will tell him if you don’t.”

Zayn can’t tell if he is being serious or not so he only sighs in irritation. Harry is his best friend, he doesn’t think he would –

“Liam!”

Zayn stiffens, only moving his head to glare at Harry because if he hits him that might call attention to him and he doesn’t want to turn around and see if Liam is actually there or not, because if he is he might see his face. It had been covered by a mask on Friday, but Liam could recognize his eyes or his lips or something -

He hears Niall’s cackle, and dread settles through him, making him hide farther into his locker. “God, if that is the dude you are so in love with bro, I will never let you live it down. Last week he came to school dressed like a fucking astronaut -“

“Shut up,” Zayn hears Liam grunt roughly. His voice sounds close and Zayn pretends to be busy digging through his locker like he is looking for something.

“Harry Styles. Nice to meet you. Want me to go ‘round and look for that dove tattoo? I have my free period right now.”  That is Harry, amusement in his voice and Zayn is going to make him walk to school for the rest of the year.

“Liam Payne,” Liam responds hesitantly, dragging the words out like he can’t tell if Harry is messing with him or not. Zayn can’t tell either. “Why would you want to do that?”

Zayn looks at Harry quickly out of the corner of his eye, watching him shrug carelessly. “I am a bit of a sucker for love stories.”

Liam chuckles, and Zayn bites roughly on the inside of his cheek because he is offended by how in love with the sound he is and there is a wounded sound threatening to spill past his tongue because of it. “Well, I mean if you want to but you don’t have to do that, bro. But thank you.”

“No problem. Good luck,” Harry says.

Zayn hesitantly looks over his shoulder but Liam is still there, leaning closer to Harry. The words he speaks are whispered and there is the same apologetic look on his face that he wore at the dance. “I’m sorry about my friends, by the way. Ignore them, yeah?”

“Not that easy, but appreciated,” Harry responds kindly, clapping Liam on the shoulder with a big grin on his lips.

Zayn watches Liam smile awkwardly, only glancing at Zayn for a moment before he heads back to his friends. He just looked right through him with no idea that he was looking at the one person he is looking for.

Zayn is _good_ at being invisible.

“See,” Harry says, turning to him now. “People aren’t always how they seem. Maybe he doesn’t know how to stand up to his friends.”

“Then they shouldn’t be his friends,” Zayn snaps. It is unfair though and he presses his head against the locker door for a moment because his head might explode soon.

Harry rubs a hand up his back. “Yeah, well.”

++

_PrinceBoy: I just don’t think its a good idea for me to tell u who I am. Not yet_

_Battyboy7: when ur ready will u let me kno?_

_PrinceBoy: yes Liam x pls stop looking for me for now_

Liam sighs, dragging a sweaty palm down his face. He smells like soap and car polish and his back hurts almost as much as his chest does.

No one seems to know anyone with a dove tattoo on their hand, and Niall had laughed for three hours practically when Liam asked him if he knew anyone with eyes like whiskey and gold. No one he has talked to knows anyone who went to the dance as Batman. One of the Tremaine twins had tried to convince him it was them underneath the mask, but Liam just walked away.

“Liam?”

His father pops his head into the back office, where Liam sits at his father’s desk and clicks around the company’s email because he rather do office work that outside right now. The air is dry and hot and Louis is better at conserving water than he is.

“A letter from North Valley Community College came today. Just wanted to tell you that I am proud of you son.”

Liam gives him a weak smile, nodding his thank you and looking back at the computer so his dad will leave. His acceptance email from Princeton arrived two weeks ago, but his father wasn’t even close to being proud of him for that. _Princeton_ and a pretty good scholarship offer, too.

He doesn’t really care if his father knows he doesn’t want to stay in North Valley, because he already made up his mind about going to Princeton. And he doesn’t care that his father stays in the doorway, glaring at him like he knows what is going through Liam’s head.

“Trust me son. This is good for you.”

Liam shoves away from the computer. “Yeah, yeah. I’m going to get lunch.”

His father sighs, running a hand through his gray hair before he pulls a few bills out of his pants pocket. “Get me a salmon burger, yeah?”

 

_Battyboy7: i cnt wait 2 get out of here_

_PrinceBoy: just a few months and then princeton xxxx_

_Battyboy7: did u get ur acceptance letter yet?_

_PrinceBoy: no : (_

_Battyboy7: soon babe. u will get in n if u don’t u can still join me. im not leavin u in this shit town_

Liam eyes the screen as he waits to be served. The diner isn’t busy today, which isn’t surprising. There are a few old ladies and a trickle of people he recognizes from the carwash sitting at the metallic tables. He sits at the counter, elbows digging into the tiles that shine almost as bright as the tables.

A waitress stands behind the counter, her hair pulled into a neat bun. She looks kind, with gentle eyes and a genuine smile on her face as she talks to an old lady a few stools away from him.

Liam sighs, thumbing the screen aimlessly. He is anxious for PrinceBoy to get his letter because he knows how important it is for him. It doesn’t make any sense that he hasn’t yet, since Liam is pretty sure he sent his application out way before he did and PrinceBoy also seems ten times smarter than him.

He eyes the bubbles pop up under his message as PrinceBoy types back, and he adjusts the phone in his palms to hover his thumbs over the keypad. It is sad really, how love struck and excited he feels just because of three bubbles. It is difficult not to pester him more for a name, but he is afraid PrinceBoy will stop talking to him completely if he does.

“Zee!”

Liam looks up, watching the waitress point to someone else in the restaurant. Her face is a hard lined and she jerks her hand towards herself, gesturing for whoever she called to come behind the counter.

It is the same boy from the night of the Halloween Dance, in his pale yellow shirt and black pressed pants. He forewent the hat today, and his inky colored hair is pushed up into a messy quiff at the top of his head. He grimaces as he skates along the tiles, skating past Liam with a quick glance his way before he stops in front of the waitress.

Liam tries not to stare at them, but the tiny dots disappeared without a message coming through and he finds his eyes lingering on the boy’s back. The last words he said to him ring around in his head – _you don’t know me, Liam_.

It had made him feel bad. Guilty – a confirmation of how shitty people think Liam Payne is.

The waiter eyes him over his shoulder, cheeks warming to a pretty red color before he turns and skates towards him. He pulls a notepad out of his pocket before he stops in front of Liam.

“Um, sorry for the wait,” the waiter mumbles, looking at Liam through his long eyelashes. There isn’t a nametag on his chest, only the Lucy’s logo. “What can I get for you?”

“Um, a salmon burger,” Liam says, dropping his eyes to the apron wrapped around his waist to see if there is a nametag there. There isn’t.

The waiter scribbles the order down on his notepad and Liam drags his eyes back up, wondering why he feels disappointed that he doesn’t know the boy’s name –

His breath hitches as his eyes lock onto the back of his hand, the one that holds the notepad firmly in it. The waiter glances up at him and Liam quickly swallows it down, hoping the wide of his eyes don’t look too alarmed.

The dove tattoo.

His Batman.

His _PrinceBoy_ –

“Er,” Liam starts, hoping the shake in his voice is noticeable only to himself. He smoothes his hands down the khakis he wears, gripping on the material right before his knees just to stop the shake in his hands. “D’you have chicken tenders or something? I think I might take my break here.”

The waiter nods, eyeing the carwash logo on the blue polo Liam wears. “We only have tartar sauce but I’m sure I can ask our cook for ketchup or something if you want it.”

Liam nods distractedly, wanting so badly to reach over the counter and touch the tattoo that has been printed on the back of his eyelids since the dance. He searches the boy’s face, trying to figure out how he didn’t realize it was him.

The curve of his lips, the way his tongue flicks out to wet the bottom one after every few words. The sound of his voice, which made Liam feel so warm that night. Those eyes –

The waiter flushes a deep red color, teeth digging into his bottom lip. “Er – I’ll go put your order in.”

“Will you join me?” Liam blurts before he can stop himself. He feels his own cheeks get warm when the waiter’s eyes widen some.

The waiter looks around some before indicating his uniform jerkily. “I’m uh – I’m working.”

Liam nods, waving him off as disappointment creeps around in his chest. The waiter knows he is Battyboy7, and he wants to blurt out that he knows who he is too. Or well, he wants a name, but he isn’t sure if is fair of him to ask since PrinceBoy asked him to stop looking for him.

But it isn’t Liam’s fault that he happened to stumble upon him. He stopped looking (well, he developed a habit of checking out the back of people’s hands upon first meeting them) so he really isn’t ignoring PrinceBoy’s request -

The waiter gives him a jerky shrug, brows crunching together like he is considering something. “Maybe um, I could just hang about here and keep an eye on the rest of my tables?”

He feels the smile on his lips pushing high into his cheeks as he nods and the waiter nods back before he skates off.

“Don’t be obvious,” he whispers to himself, still smiling. It is an impossible task, because warmth is expanding in his chest and his heart is beating rapidly. His bad mood from his dad is completely gone and he just fuck – feels happy.

 

“I just hate this place,” Liam sighs, sneaking a fry off of the waiter’s plate. The waiter sits at the counter with him, an elbow propped on the hard surface as he picks at his food. He had told the kind looking waitress that he was taking his break too, but they have been sitting here and talking for nearly a half hour. His phone has been vibrating non-stop for the last ten minutes, but he has ignored it because he knows it is probably his dad or Sophia, since she hasn’t stopped texting him since they broke up.

And the only person he wants to text is sitting right in front of him.

“I don’t mean like – this place, though to be honest I am not the biggest fan of the fish theme. I meant like, North Valley. The people here, you know.”

Except for you.

The waiter chuckles. His lips quirk up at the corners and Liam feels his own lips mimicking the shape. “I fucking hate this diner, dude. It is okay if you do too.”

“You have worked here for a long time, though right?”

PrinceBoy never told him where he worked, and now that he thinks of it – Liam had never asked him either. But he knows the nickname Diner Boy has been around for a while, even though he never knew who he was.

It hurts as he considers the reason why he hadn’t wanted to tell Liam who he is. Louis and Niall have been making fun of him for years, and he never once said anything to stop him. He just kept his eyes away like he didn’t notice, and maybe that is why he never recognized him -

“Yeah. Still hate it though. I have to work here. No choice.”

Liam gulps, easing anxious fingers down the khaki material of his pants. “Yeah, saving up for college?”

The waiter hesitates as he grabs for another fry. “Yeah. Hopefully somewhere far away. I hate this place too.”

The waiter’s eyes focus on something behind him and the sad look on his face makes Liam turn in his seat.

He groans internally, eyes finding Sophia walking through the door with her chin tilted high and Danielle behind her. She glances at Liam, but quickly looks away as if she is pretending she doesn’t see him. Liam has no doubt that she probably asked her dad or Louis where he was.

“And I hate the people too,” the waiter adds. It is whispered and he doesn’t look at Liam when he says it, but Liam can hear the sadness in his voice.

He doesn’t think about it as he reaches to graze a thumb against the waiter’s jaw. There is a stubble of hair there, prickly against his fingers. His skin is warm, and soft and Liam flattens his palm there before he realizes what he is doing and pulls his hand away.

“Sorry,” Liam whispers. He gulps down as the waiter looks up at him. There is nothing on his face that tells Liam if he minded or not. But he does know Liam is Battyboy7, he reminds himself. “I um – she is awful.”

The waiter nods, tilting his head to the side some. “I thought you were kind of awful too. But I am starting to think I was wrong.”

There is a genuine smile on his face that makes Liam’s heart race. “I have a habit of pretending to be who people think I should be. I don’t want to be that way anymore.”

“Then don’t,” the waiter tells him softly, cocking his head to the side. He drags thin fingers through his hair, making it stick out messily. It is adorable, and Liam kind of wants to run his fingers through it as well. “Who cares what they think, you know?”

“Yeah,” Liam sighs, mimicking the waiter’s movements and working his thicker fingers through his own curls. He is thinking about cutting them off, but he wants to feel the waiter’s fingers brushing through them first. “I have always been afraid of them treating me as awful as they treat others.”

The waiter raises his eyebrows and Liam clenches his eyes shut around a groan. “I’m sorry, that – I didn’t mean –“

“It sucks,” the waiter interrupts, no readable emotion on his face. “So it is understandable that you feel that way.”

“I’m sorry,” Liam says softly, wanting to reach over and touch the waiter again.

“Don’t be,” the waiter mumbles, teeth sliding against his lower lip. “Just if you see ‘em bullying, don’t stand quiet.”

The waiter gives him a small smile as if to show his words are meant to be harsh and Liam nods, nibbling on his lower lip too. His words hurt because Liam has stood by and just let him be bullied by his friends.

Liam’s phone vibrates again and he eyes the clock with a heavy sigh. “I should probably get back to work before my dad comes after me. It was really nice talking to you em – maybe we can another time?”

The waiter nods, cheeks reddening. “I would like that.”

++

Zayn feels like he is floating, flying – no soaring. The worry that Liam would dislike him if he found out who he is is gone, the weight of that no longer pressing down on his shoulders. He feels light, relieved.

And he can’t stop grinning. To the point where his cheeks are starting to hurt and Caroline had eyed him suspiciously the rest of his shift. He dipped out of work before Caroline got the chance to ask him what he was grinning foolishly about because she kept mentioning the boy with the chubby cheeks and the kind eyes -

He continues his conversation with Liam about running off to Princeton together, not yet telling him he is considering meeting him as Zayn Malik. Liam would ask what changed his mind, and he can’t really just tell him that they ate lunch together and Zayn didn’t tell him it was him. Well, he would find out eventually -

Zayn shoves the phone in his pocket, leaning back against the cold wall of the storage unit he sits in. It is attached to the back of the garage, filled with the items that belonged to his parents that he was able to convince Lucy to allow him to keep to “sell” one day.

It is his favorite place to draw, even though the lighting is shit and the ground is hard to sit on. He likes it because if he closes his eyes, he can almost remember the smell of their home as it still lingers to the old items. There isn’t much here, just a few boxes filled with his mother’s clothes and a few photo albums she had put together. There are a few of the books she used to read to him, and his parents’ old duvet that his father had given to him right before he had married Lucy.

And he likes it because the twins can’t come in here like they do his room, which is where they are now, because they have a key and their mom is too worried about them ruining the (nonexistent) valuables in here.

There is a sketchpad balancing on his knees now, but the pages are blank because Liam is distracting. The pages will just fill with pictures of him again once he has cleared his head of any of the bad that always seems to linger there, no matter how good of a day he has had.

Zayn stares ahead, focusing on the obscene way Liam’s always slicked lips move when he talks instead of anything else when his eyes drag over the familiar binding of his story book. The one he had practically forgotten about and is shoved in a corner in the side of the unit. Zayn knows for sure he would never put it there because it could get damaged.

He picks it up carefully, after balancing his sketchpad on another box. It is thick, with yellowed pages and a spine that is cracked and warped like it had suffered water damage. He holds it carefully before he sits with his back against the storage wall and balances it in his lap.

It is comforting, holding the book of fairy tales in his hands. It has been a long time since he opened it, and he isn’t sure why now he is craving the comfort it gives more so than just checking on it’s condition. He feels happy, and he wishes he could tell his mother all about Liam, his very own Prince –

Zayn drags his fingers along the cover, over the castles and princesses he can barely see in the dim light of the storage unit. The paper smells old – feels old, and he is careful as he flips through the pages. The pages are dried and swollen like they had at one point been wet, and Zayn wonders how long the book had been in that corner because their sprinklers had been ordered to be shut off two weeks ago.

He clenches his eyes shut for a moment, trying to remember the sound of his mother’s voice as she read the words printed on the page. The memory warms through him. His father used to rest against his door frame, arms crossed as he watched his mother read to him –

Zayn stops when he flips the page and finds a thick piece of paper, folded and stuffed into the crease between the pages. It doesn’t look as old as the book, and he doesn’t remember putting a piece of paper here, but he hasn’t seen the book since his father took it away from him when he was eight.

With careful fingers he pulls the paper out and unfolds it. His breath hitches when it scans the bold words at the top and he grips the paper roughly for a moment, nearly ripping it’s sides.

“Fuck,” he breathes, clenching his eyes shut because there is a pressure in his chest and this time it is for a good reason.

++

Liam doesn’t have a name, still. But he has a face, and that is something.

He just hasn’t seen said face in about a week and his search online for that face brought up zero results. He doesn’t know where to start, and he has never really been good at finding people on Facebook anyway. Liam knows he hangs out with that Harry guy, but he hasn’t been able to find him on Facebook either.

Though, he could have found him and not known because the boy seems to have a habit of looking different every day.

Like now, his normally messy hair is slicked back neatly and hardened with gel. Thick framed glasses balance on his nose and he wears a sweater vest that clings to his chest. He has one arm slung around the shoulders of a girl with jet black hair with purple and green streaks through it that he recognizes from the student council.

“Excuse me, Harry?” He says it hesitantly, because even though he is pretty sure the boy is Harry, the look is confusing to him.

Harry looks at him, eyes widening some as he slides his arm away from the girl. He adjusts the tie hugging his neck with nervous fingers. “Em, yeah?”

Liam slides a sweaty palm against the back of his neck. It isn’t fair of him to go behind PrinceBoy’s back and ask for his name, but he has hardly even spoke to PrinceBoy the last week, and he is afraid he did something wrong when they were at the diner together.

“Is this about your Batman?”

Harry’s lips quirk up some, eyes bright and the girl eyes the two of them before she gets the hint that it is private and busies herself in the locker behind them.

“Um, yeah,” Liam starts nervously. “Eh – Diner Boy? I mean, the guy with the dove tattoo. Your friend?”

Harry’s amused expression quickly disappears. His lips fall open some as he stares back at Liam for a long moment. A long moment in which Liam thinks maybe he went into shock or something before he gulps and adjusts that tie again.

“Um, I don’t know what you mean?”

Liam sighs. He has little patience and he hates when he loses the last of it, because then he feels uncomfortably like his father. “Yes you do. He is your friend, the waiter.”

Harry shakes his head adamantly, hands digging deep into the pockets of his pressed pants. The girl glances at them from over her shoulder and Liam has to pinch the bridge of his nose to ease the tension building in him.

“Zee?” Liam goes on, remembering what the kind waitress had called the waiter.

Harry’s face goes beet red. He looks like a deer caught in headlights with his wide bambi eyes, and it would be amusing if Liam wasn’t already irritated. “I’m really sorry I – I can’t, okay? If he wants to tell you, he will?”

Liam nods, dragging a hand down his face because Harry is right.  He should have known this was going to be the result, but last week Harry had offered to help him.

He should have realized that Harry had been making fun of him because he had been standing right next to the person Liam was looking for. “Fine, fine. Can you just tell me if he is okay? I haven’t heard from him nearly all week.”

Harry smiles, that uneasy look on his face washing away as he realizes Liam isn’t going to press him anymore. “Yeah, dude. Better than ever. But I can’t tell you why or then you’ll figure it out, so um – yeah, bye.”

Liam watches him slide an arm around the girl’s shoulder again before guiding her away from where Liam stands rooted in his spot, trying to figure out what he is going to do next. He can’t really think straight because he feels exhausted from the way his mind is whirring with one thought after the other.

 

Liam decides to go to the diner.

Well, Liam decides that he is going to walk into the diner and demand to know a name and pick the waiter up into his arms and kiss him all romantic and everyone is going to cheer, just like in those movies his mother watches and shit.

Or something like that. He hasn’t really got the details all in order yet, but it is a start.

He grips the steering wheel tightly, anxious as he drives down the strip towards the diner. The waiter should be there, because he has been there every single time Liam has ever gone to Lucy’s, and PrinceBoy has complained to him time and time again about how he hates that he works nearly every shift, every day.

Liam slows when he gets closer, eyeing the parking lot which is filled with moving vans and construction trucks. The Lucy’s sign is no longer towering over the diner, and as he pulls into the parking lot, he reads the _Closed For Renovations_ sign plastered to the front of the building.

Disappointment fills him as he stops the Jeep and takes it all in. He spots the kind waitress, dressed in a striped pants suit instead of her pink uniform as she talks to a man with a bright yellow hard hat. Another man stands beside her, nodding along to something the first man is saying.

It doesn’t make sense that Zee would be doing better than ever if his one place of income has closed down.

Liam hops out of the Jeep, shoving his hands into his pockets as he makes his way over to the waitress cautiously. Her kind face makes Liam think he can go up and talk to her, but there is something intimidating about her as well and he can’t quite put a finger on what it is.

“Excuse me, m’am?”

The waitress looks at him with a hard look before her lips break into a smile that is almost as bright as the shine in her eyes. “Hey there. Liam, is it?”

He frowns for a moment in confusion. He will wonder if PrinceBoy has told people about him and what he has said later, because the thought of it makes his chest tight and he is already having a hard time getting the words out.

“Um, yeah. I’m looking for someone who works here? I didn’t realize the place was closed?”

Her smile grows as she nods excitedly. “We got a new owner. Making this place what it once was before it became Lucy’s.”

“Oh um, nice,” Liam says distractedly. He vaguely remembers the old diner that used to be here, but he remembers the way his parents used to talk about the old owner after he passed away. _Yaser Malik, quite a nice man. Shame he died in that earthquake –_

The kind waitress places a hand on his shoulder. “You lookin’ for Zayn?”

Liam wants to shrug, because he doesn’t have a name, but he nods. Zee – Zayn, it could be him, and he doesn’t want the waitress to laugh at him too when he says he is looking for the hot waiter with eyes like honey.

The waitress takes the notepad from the man standing next to her. “Thanks Sid,” she mumbles, before she scribbles something down. “This is his address. He should be there.”

Liam takes the piece of paper carefully like it is something valuable and fragile. “Thank you so much –“

“Caroline,” the waitress tells him. There is a knowing look in her eyes when she smiles again. “You take care of my boy, okay?”

Liam just stares at her for a moment, unsure of what to say before he gives her a jerky nod. It feels like the only proper response, and his cheeks are on fire as he says his goodbyes and another thank you before he heads back to his Jeep.

 

PrinceBoy’s house is so big that Liam considers the fact that maybe he is a prince. If there were a Prince of North Valley or whatever. Or maybe it is like the Princess Diaries movies, and he is a Prince of some far away land, doomed to grow up in a town that makes you feel invisible.

The house is at least three stories high, with what looks to be a tower in the back that he can see purple curtains through the window at the top. There is a three door garage that looks big enough to fit at least five cars, and the grass is so green that it makes the other lawns around it look like they lack any color.

There are three moving trucks outside of it, and burly men who move in and out of the house with expensive looking furniture made out of mahogany wood, that hard cushion material that makes up old Italian furniture and gold plated lamps shaped like fish. Two men carry out a large, gold framed portrait of a woman whose face looks to be plastic by the way her smile is more of a grimace and her eyes scream pain more so than happiness.

He recognizes her from the diner, from the carwash – always bringing those Tremaine twins, Danny and Ant, there to bother him while he is working. His mother had been talking about her the other morning, about how she is worried the twins won’t have anywhere to go once their house goes up for sale.

Liam looks at the address Caroline gave him to him, double checking that he is at the right place. He doesn’t want this house to be the right place, because then that means PrinceBoy is moving.

Dread fills him and makes his chest tight and he doesn’t think before he hops out of the Jeep and makes his way towards a mover that rests his back against one of the trucks and flicks the ashes of his cigarette into the emerald grass.

“Excuse me?” Liam says, wiping his sweating palms down his pants. Would PrinceBoy bother to tell him if he was moving? Is that why he has been short in responding this last week? “Is the owner of this house here?”

The man lets out a sardonic chuckle. “That crazy ol’ bat is locked up. For good, hopefully.”

Liam frowns. “Well, is her son here? Um, Zayn?”

The man inhales for a long moment as he shakes his head. “No, sorry. He might be down at the probate court, but I’m not really sure. Left here a few hours ago.”

Liam groans, clenching his fingers into a fist instead of tugging them through his hair and pulling it out like he wants to. He feels like the universe is playing games with him and he really just wants to kiss PrinceBoy again.

Or Zayn, he reminds himself. At least he has gotten something out of this. A name -

++

Zayn holds the thick paper in his hand, rereading the words over and over again like he has been continuously doing for the last week.

_This is the last will and testament of Yaser Malik –_

His stomach twists like it always does when he reads it. But a good twist of the stomach because he is free, finally. Yaser left him everything – the house, the diner, the cars, the contents of his bank account.

Zayn is selling all of it. Everything that reminds him of Lucy and her sons is for sale. He is only saving his own things, and what is left of his parents’. Any money made is going towards Princeton, and the reopening of _Yaser’s_.

Princeton. Zayn clenches his eyes closed. Another good thing that came out of this week. Lucy admitted to hiding his Princeton acceptance letter from him as if that would get her on his good side. It just made him more irritated with her, really, but Lucy has never been known to use her brain properly.

But now he feels happy, elated - relieved, better than he has felt in forever. He is staying with Caroline and her daughter, Brooklyn for the remainder of the school year, and then going off to Princeton. His father’s diner will be back in a short few months –

It feels like a dream, one he has had a million of times since his father passed, but never imagined it would be anything more than just a dream.

“Zayn!” There is a loud bang at his door, followed by Brooklyn’s soft coos and tiny fists knocking at the door like her mother’s. “I am not letting you miss another day of school. You better get your bony butt up and get to school.”

Zayn chuckles, swinging his feet to the side of the bed so he can stand up. “Yes, m’am,” He calls back through the door.

He folds the will up, sliding it into the dresser beside his bed before he grabs his phone. Liam’s normal good morning message waits for him and Zayn quickly taps a reply before he has second thoughts.

_PrinceBoy: lets meet after the game 2nite, behind the sports house_

He exhales out a shaky breath, shoving the phone into his pocket. Kissing Liam again would be the only thing that could top off his week. It has been such a busy week that he hasn’t been able to talk to Liam as much and he craves him, really. More so than just texting him, but he craves to feel the warmth of his skin and see the glow of his smile again.

 

Zayn bites around a grin as he eyes the string of smiley faces Liam sends to him. He ventures down the hallway, thinking of something to respond back with but he can’t really think of anything other than sending another smile. There has been a permanent one stitched onto his lips for the past week and he wants to press it to Liam’s and stitch into his skin -

“Hey dick head.”

Zayn stills, a chill running down his spine as he looks up from his phone. Danny and Ant stand in front of him, a few feet before his locker with their arms crossed in front of their chests. He has done his best to avoid them over the past week, which is the main reason he hasn’t come to school since he kicked them out of the house.

“Leave me alone,” Zayn starts, gritting his teeth together. Harry took a ride with Cara today, and he wishes he were with him instead, even though Danny and Ant could take the two of them without breaking a sweat.

It is then he notices the way his locker and the ones that hug the wall around it are covered in white paper. White paper with gray sketches on them that are so familiar that it makes Zayn’s stomach twist painfully. He sees the sketched planes of Liam’s bare back, the dip of his spine before his briefs and the way his body hovers over a barely finished one of his own stuck to his locker. It hangs next to the one of Cinderella holding out her gloved hand for her Prince Charming, whose thick brows and sharp jaw resemble Liam’s in a way he is sure everyone else will be able to notice.

“I don’t think so,” Danny starts, reaching out and grabbing his shoulder. He digs his fingers in roughly before he swinging him around and pushing him up against the locker. The blow knocks the breath out of Zayn’s lungs and shakes the locker enough that a few of the drawings slide to the floor. There are other littered there, and stuck to the wall opposite of them.

“Are you happy now that you have everything you want? The house? Our mother gone? Us? That damn Indian restaurant –“

“Liam Payne?”

Zayn stiffens, wishing he could sink into the hard metal of the locker and hide himself inside of it.

Ant flicks him as Danny shoves him harder into the locker like he wants Zayn to sink into it too. “You know, you have drawn him quite nicely. I really like the one where he looks like a prince. Kind of like the Halloween dance, huh?”

Zayn watches people walk past them. They all look at the sketches, picking them off the floor and making confused and judgmental faces. His heart beats rapidly in his chest, his throat tight and the contents of his stomach threatening to spill out and onto Danny’s ugly sweater. He tries to bite back the tears welding in his eyes, but the sound of everyone’s laughter is like a siren, deafening in his ears and banging against his temples.

Ant grabs his hand roughly, looking at the back of his hand where the dove tattoo is. “I forgot you had this. Good thing I remembered though, because it gave me the wonderful idea to hack into your computer before you kicked us out. Found these sketches stashed in the drawer of your desk.”

“Yeah,” Danny adds. “We got the idea after Sophia walked in on you and Liam on a date in _our_ restaurant.”

Zayn scowls at them, struggling against Danny’s hold on him. “You went through my computer?”

They both chuckle and Zayn is definitely going to throw up now. Zayn always keeps his emails open from when he used to instant message Liam because he likes to read them whenever he hid away from Lucy.

“Yeah. Wait for it –“

Danny holds up a finger with his other hand but it is anticlimactic as nothing happens. Zayn braces himself, shoving farther against the metal as he turns his head in case his step brother tries to hit him.

People keep walking by, not interested in the fact that he is being shoved into a locker, but rather interested in the drawings of dragons and their half-naked football captain instead.

It could be worse, he wants to think, desperate to find anything that could help him feel better in this situation, but then he sees him walk into the hallway. Liam’s lips are pushed into a pout, thick brows furrowed together as he looks around like he is trying to figure out why everyone is laughing so much.

Liam’s eyes find his and they go wide. It only takes a moment before he is moving across the hallway and reaching out to grab Danny’s shoulder.

The intercom beeps on as Liam tugs Danny away from him roughly. Zayn’s knees buckle, and he pushes some more of the sketches from where they hang as he tries to balance himself against the locker.

_“Once upon a time, not very long long ago –“_

The sound of Sophia’s voice fills the hallway, stopping Liam in his tracks as he goes to push Danny farther away from him.

“You okay?”

Zayn wishes he could snap his fingers and disappear because Liam looks past him as his voice dies off and his eyes connect with the drawings behind him. Zayn prays the ones of Liam have fallen and only the ones of Cinderella remain.

_“There lived a poor little orphan boy –“_

The familiar sound of Niall’s cackle is louder than the rest of the laughter in the hallway. More people keep walking through, right past them and they all seem to have the sketches in their hands –

“Poor little orphan boy,” Danny coos, reaching out to tickle a finger under Zayn’s chin but Liam halts his movements like a reflex, hitting it loud enough that it adds a smacking noise to the other noise around them.

“Fuck off,” Liam snaps.

“Dude,” Niall cackles, pushing up against him and now Zayn feels cornered, stuck between Ant, Danny, Liam and his two best friends with no escape. It is suffocating, and he grips his fingers into the cold metal of the locker like that will help him any. “Proper knight in shining armor, are ya?”

 _“I can’t even hint at the fact that I want to kiss boys or my dad will disown me,”_ Sophiagoes on and he sees the way the color drains out of Liam’s face. He had said that to him only a few weeks ago.

“You look nice like this, Payno,” Louis teases, grabbing a piece of paper from the floor and handing it to Liam. He elbows Zayn with a grin on his face. “Nice work there, dude.”

Liam looks at Zayn for a long moment, ignoring his friend and his face is unreadable.

“Leave him alone, yeah?” He drops the paper to the floor and directs his words to Louis. It does have a drawing of Liam on it, but he wears a red and green spandex suit with a black mask covering his eyes. He had thought it was funny at the time, after Battyboy had made a comment about being Barnacle Boy a few months ago.

“Just – stop.”

There is no reason for Zayn to expect Liam to stand up for him since Liam doesn’t know who he is, but the lack of conviction in Liam’s voice makes his heart fall into his stomach. None of the boys around him are affected by Liam’s attempt at getting them to back off and Zayn brings his hands up to his ears to block out the sound of their laughter.

He wishes he had a blanket to hide under, or his parents’ duvet to drag over his head and pretend like it is impenetrable. To sound, touch, anything that can cause harm to him, just like he used to do whenever there was a storm when he was younger.

_“The little orphan boy just wanted someone to love him, after all. The only people who were supposed to killed themselves off instead –“_

The words pierce through him worse than the laughter that follows even though he knows they aren’t true. It isn’t anything compared to the way Liam’s eyes drop to the floor though, the way his lips press tightly together. Even when Danny reaches out to him with another giggle about being an orphan and a hand to his chest, Liam just stands there like he always does -

“Get away from him!”

The sound of Harry’s voice sends a wash of relief through him, even though his best friend’s voice is just as frantic as he feels. He feels the warm press of his fingertips against his arm, yanking him past Niall and Zayn stumbles in the eager way he follows after him.

“Come on,” Harry coos, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as they turn quickly around a corner. He can still hear their laughter, still hear Sophia’s voice over the intercom saying Liam’s name and it makes him feel like he is seconds from exploding. His body shakes, the tightness in his throat still present because he feels like crying but he doesn’t want to -

Harry guides him into the nurse’s office without saying word to the nurse, because Harry is slightly a hypochondriac and spends most of his free block here. He spends enough time here that him and the nurse are friends and sometimes the nurse will send him home with a sick note if he is having a rough day with the rest of the students.

“It’s okay,” Harry murmurs, patting a cold rag to his cheeks once he has him sitting on the little makeshift gurney bed. Zayn isn’t hurt or anything and Harry really is just wiping up the few tears that manage to slip past his eyelids, but the cool rag feels good against his warm face and it is calming down the hiccupped sobs in his chest. “You know what they said isn’t true. About your parents -”

Zayn nods his head, digging his fingers harder into his sides to hold himself together. He knows his parents loved him more than anyone else, and he has never questioned it, even when Lucy has tried telling him the opposite.

“I know. I’m upset because –“ He hiccups, clenching his eyes shut to stop the damn tears. “Liam just kept quiet. He told me he wanted to be different and he acted the same. And they took my art work and spread it everywhere and they just laughed at me. Every single person who walked by.”

Harry coos softly, running gentle fingers through Zayn’s messy hair. “He is a dick. They are all dicks.”

Zayn sniffles, nodding in response. He can feel his phone going off constantly, but he doesn’t want to talk to Liam, and that thought makes him feel worse. He doesn’t want to know if Liam has figured out who he is, or how he feels about the drawings even though Zayn has told Battyboy about them before.

“You know,” Harry sighs, sitting next to him. “Maybe he doesn’t know who you are.”

Zayn shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t stick up for me because he likes me or whatever, he should stick up for me because I am a person and you stick up for people when they are being bullied. But everyone was like that. No one tried to help until you came around.”

“Cause I’m not a dick,” he explains quietly, smiling some to make him feel better. “And I think your drawings are actually pretty cool. I don’t know why you always kept them from me.”

Zayn shrugs weakly. They are private, his thoughts on paper. He doesn’t need a diary, but to him it is kind of the same thing. Especially since most of his pages have something to do with Liam on them ever since the dance. He likes to write, but he enjoys the way he can draw out his words too.

“What a shitty end to a good week,” Harry murmurs, pressing a messy kiss to Zayn’s forehead. “Let’s go to the football bonfire tonight and steal all of their liquor.”

Zayn snorts. He feels a bit better now – at least, relaxed enough that his body no longer feels like it is going to fall apart. “Sounds like a plan.”

++

Liam’s legs hurt, and he wishes his father would give him a break since his father is most likely going to keep him in the whole game. It is his punishment, he thinks, because Liam is sure that his dad heard the rumors about Liam Payne, gay football captain –

“Get your shit together,” his father grumbles, patting his helmet a little roughly. “There are recruits here tonight, and you need to be at your best. Keep their eyes on you.”

Liam groans, leaning forward to rest his hands on his knees and catch his breath. “I don’t care about them,” he huffs out. He really, really could care less. He used to love football, but his father’s dreams of him going pro with it have completely ruined it for him.

“Excuse me?” His father glares at him, his fist clenching around the clip board he holds. The stands are already starting to fill with people coming to watch the game, and he really doesn’t want them all to see him fighting with his father. He has had a bad enough day as it is.

He is pretty sure Zayn hates him, because he hadn’t said anything when his friends laughed over Sophia’s comment about his parents and he had just told him at the diner he should stop keeping being silent about bullying. Or maybe he is avoiding his texts because of the drawings that are actually really good and would normally make Liam feel warm inside, but instead he feels cold because the rest of the shit people around them were making fun of something Zayn had told him he feels proud of -

“I don’t give a fuck,” Liam snaps in frustration, watching his father’s eyes widen in alarm. “Now can I sit down before the game starts? You are wearing me out.”

His father taps him hard in the chest, eyes narrowed and teeth clenched. “We will talk about this after.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Liam mumbles, feet dragging against the turf as he makes his way to the bench on the side. Liam doubts it, because he might just hop in the Jeep after the game and take off.

“Liam, Liam!”

Liam ignores Sophia, pressing his face into his palms as he listens to the crowd grow louder. She gives up after a moment, starting a cheer with the rest of the girls that has the crowd hooting and shouting.

After Zayn had run away with Harry, he had yelled at his friends and at Sophia but it didn’t matter. They had already hurt him.

 

The game is going to shit, and Liam knows it. But he doesn’t care because he isn’t trying to put in any effort. He feels heavy, the bottom of his feet sore from smacking against the hard turf that he wishes he could sink into and disappear.

His father keeps scolding him from the sidelines and Niall and Louis keep ragging on him, making jokes about his Batman and the drawings of him that he is pretty sure they pinned all around the school hallways with Sophia and the Tremaine twins.

“Did you see the one where –“

“Shut up,” Liam growls, knocking Louis hard on the helmet. “Don’t say another word about it or I am kicking you out of the game and you can sit and watch with the water boy.”

“Excuse me?” Louis fires right back, taking a step closer to Liam.

“Time out!” His father calls when Louis takes another step towards him and Liam looks at the rage that completely takes over his face. It is directed towards them and Louis mumbles something like _thanks a lot_ before he shrinks his shoulders forward and walks back to the team.

Liam wants to say something back, but he gets distracted in the sea of people behind his dad. It is strange to him, how the face never stood out to him before, but now in a crowd of nearly five hundred people, he can pick him out easily.

He sits in the stands, right smack in the middle. Harry is there, wearing a North Valley shirt and his hair painted the school colors. Zayn sits beside him, a frown on his lips and hands settled into his lap.

He stares at Zayn, who doesn’t look back, until hands are pushing him roughly to the center of the field. Zayn, Zayn – ever since he learned that was his name, he has been saying it over and over again, savoring the way it tastes rolling off his tongue.

Zayn Malik -

His father claps him on the back, dragging him back to the huddle with his teammates. He is coaching (which is really lecturing and complaining in his opinion), but Liam doesn’t pay attention. The only thing he cares about is sitting off the field, in the stands amongst the people who had teased him today, and days before that -

Liam looks back to the stands, searching for him but there is now an empty space next to Harry and Harry is frowning, eyes stuck on the hands in his lap.

He finds him a few people over, making his way down the wide steps of the bleachers with his eyes on the ground. Zayn drags a hand down his face, like he is trying to wipe away the sad look he wears.

Liam doesn’t think about it before he takes off, jogging off the field and losing his helmet somewhere in the process. He can hear his dad calling after him but he ignores it, ignores the yells from his teammates and the busy chatter of the crowd watching him.

All he focuses on is him, Zayn – the name he has been craving to know for months. Zayn, who he has seen but never seconded a glance and he can’t figure out what the fuck was wrong with him before because now it is the face he can’t get out of his head.

Zayn, who he hadn’t stood up for but he should have because Zayn deserves someone who can protect him and treat him the way he deserves. Someone who can be the hero that he always jokes about wanting, but won’t admit that he might actually need it.

Zayn Malik, the boy he fell in love with before he even knew what his name was.

“Zayn!”

Liam hops over the fence wrapped around the field. There is a crackle from the sky, and there is something different about the air but Liam blames the fact that maybe he is going lightheaded from the way his thoughts spin rapidly around his head.

Zayn stops, a few feet from the bleachers’ steps. There are people scattered around them, huddled into groups, but he doesn’t care about any of them as he jogs to close the space between him and Zayn. Zayn’s eyes are wide, brows pushed together in confusion as he watches Liam come closer.

“Zayn Malik,” he huffs out, slowing when he gets a few feet away from him. He can see the red of his eyelids, the way they are swollen and puffy like he had been crying. Sophia had said his last name over the intercom earlier, and he wishes that he had found out his name in a different way.

“What are you doing, Liam?” Zayn says tiredly.

“I love you,” Liam blurts, closing the rest of the space between them. He cups his palms to Zayn’s jaw, tilting his head up some and taking it as a good sign when Zayn doesn’t pull away. He feels a drop of liquid on his face, but he isn’t crying even though the tightness in his throat makes him feel like he might.

Zayn wipes it away, leaning into Liam’s touch. His brows push together some after a moment, those brown gold eyes connecting with his. “What?”

“I love you,” Liam repeats, slower this time, emphasizing each word so Zayn can understand how much he means it. “I love you and I am sorry I am such a coward but you make me want to be a better person and I want to show you that I can be. I need you to know that I can be a better person.”

“You are not a bad person, Liam -“

Liam shakes his head to interrupt him before he can continue. He doesn’t care who is looking at them, or that there is a busy chatter among the people around them. All he cares about is Zayn understanding him. “I am sorry for earlier, Zayn. You are the only person I care about in this damn place and I did a shit job at showing you that.”

Zayn hesitates for a long beat, lips parting and closing like he isn’t sure of what to say in response. Liam doesn’t want Zayn to tell him he is wrong, he wants Zayn to let him apologize. “How did you know it was me?”

Liam drops a hand from his jaw to wrap his fingers around Zayn’s hand. They both watch the way his thumb drags over the dove tattoo as he brings Zayn’s hand up so he can press his lips to it. “At the diner last week, I saw it when you were taking my order.”

Zayn’s breath hitches and he squeezes his fingers almost reflexively against Liam’s. “I thought it was maybe the drawings of you –“

Liam presses his lips to Zayn’s knuckles again because he can feel Zayn’s hand shaking in his own. “I like those. Maybe you can draw more for me? I can try modeling for you.”

Zayn snorts, nose crinkling and the tension seeping out of his face some. Liam grins behind Zayn’s hand before he lets it go and Zayn settles it against his hip.

“I know how you can make it up to me,” Zayn breathes, the corner of his lips quirking up some. He pulls him closer, until their bodies are practically completely pressed together. He tilts his head up some, his tongue flicking out to wet his bottom lip.

Liam nods in understanding. Something wet slides down the back of his neck, and there is another crackle in the air that he swears is thunder before he ducks his head forward and captures Zayn’s lips against his own.

He drags his lips against Zayn’s, wanting to imprint everything he feels against the other boy’s mouth. Zayn’s fingers dig into his sides, his teeth nipping at Liam’s bottom lip as they slot together. It is better than the first time, because this time Liam has a name he can whisper against his lips, even if it can’t be heard over the crowd and the sound of thunder rumbling around in the sky above them.

It goes completely quiet for a beat, and then there is a sound like glass shattering before rain pellets pound against his back. Droplets slip through his hair, matting the curls already clinging to the side of his head from sweat but he doesn’t pull away from Zayn. He licks at the taste of rain water on his lips, pressing closer to him as their clothes get drenched and stick uncomfortably to their bodies.

Zayn presses his smile to Liam’s lips, letting his chuckle vibrate against his mouth. “Come on,” Zayn whispers, only pulling away some so Liam can see the glint in his eyes. His inky hair sticks to his forehead and water droplets cling to those long eyelashes. “Let’s get out of here, yeah? Show me what you mean by modeling?”

Liam feels his face goes red and he pecks Zayn’s lips once more before he slides their fingers together. The rain pounds against the ground noisily, and they are completely soaked but Liam feels like he is soaring fast enough to dodge the raindrops with Zayn by his side as they rush off to his Jeep.

“Where do you want to go?” Liam asks when they get into the car. He feels high off Zayn, and he doesn’t even care that he is probably ruining his seats with his wet clothes.

“My house,” Zayn tells him, leaning over the divider to kiss Liam again. His lips slip against his wet skin and he grabs Liam’s cheeks to hold him still. “I love you too, by the way.”

 

Zayn’s old house is even bigger inside, especially because it is completely bare. He can see the stain of old portraits on the walls and there is a smell of something woody that reminds him of the incenses his aunt use to burn.

But he doesn’t pay much attention to it as Zayn presses him against the back of the front door, fingers slipping down the jersey that clings to his abdomen. The rain patters against the windows, loud as it echoes through the empty, dark house.

“Sorry,” Zayn mumbles, pulling Liam’s jersey enough that it pulls up from underneath the lip of his spandex pants. “I think the proper protocol for admitting your feelings for someone is than taking their clothes off.”

Liam cups Zayn’s jaw, muffling the sound of his laugh against his lips as he kisses him again. Zayn tugs him backwards, away from the door and they slip and stumble against the tile floor, dragging wet foot prints against the carpeted stairs and a streak of wet down the side of the upstairs hallway wall as Liam chucks the shirt he strangled off Zayn behind him.

“C’mon,” Zayn mutters, turning away from him and slipping their fingers together before he is dragging Liam up another flight of stairs. And another –

“This is the tower thing in the back, right?” Liam mutters, moving closer to press his chest to Zayn’s back. He slips a hand around his waist, fingers warming over the cool, damp skin of his tummy. It feels so good to be with Zayn, normal – comfortable, like this is where he is supposed to be.

“Yeah,” Zayn chuckles, pushing open a door at the top of the stairs. There is a large ‘Z’ carved in the middle of it. “I have been waiting for my Prince Charming to come break in through the window but I guess the door will have to do.”

Liam snorts, pressing his lips to the back of Zayn’s neck as he follows him inside. It is a simple room with a small, twin sized bed, a desk and a dresser. There is a lamp dangling where the slanted walls come to a point and it glows more so than lights up the room any, but it is bright enough that he can see the frayed old maroon blanket on Zayn’s bed and the small photos stuck to the wall above the headboard of his bed.

“Do you want me to try right now?” Liam jokes, pretending to turn towards the door they just walked into. “Might be a little slippery but I am up to the challenge.”

The laugh Zayn lets out makes his nose wrinkle some and he reaches out for Liam to drag him closer. The rain seems louder up here, slapping and slipping down the tiny window that is framed by purple curtains. The thunder is even louder, as it booms overhead while streaks of lightning light up the tiny room.

“No,” he chuckles out. “But maybe I can take you up on that offer of going to Princeton with you instead?”

Liam nods, humming out his response as he plants his lips to the center of Zayn’s forehead. If Zayn thinks he is going to stop kissing him any time soon, he is wrong. “You don’t have a choice. Now that I have you, I don’t think I am letting go of you anytime soon.”

He slides his arms around Zayn’s smaller shoulders as if to emphasize his words, but the truth is that really Zayn is the one who has a hold on him.

“Well,” Zayn murmurs, looking up at him with a grin on his lips. He is starting to get cold and even though Zayn is just as cold as him, his bare skin feels warm underneath Liam’s fingertips.  “I have no choice also because um –“

Liam pouts when Zayn stops talking. He slides his palms down the other boy’s back as he waits, wanting to take off the material that sticks to his own skin so he can see what it feels like against Zayn’s.

“I got my Princeton letter,” Zayn finally manages, nibbling on his bottom lip. Liam’s heart sinks into his stomach when he sees the nerves on Zayn’s face because it wouldn’t make any sense if he hadn’t gotten accepted. But that look only lasts a second before a smile breaks out across his lips.

Liam presses his lips to Zayn’s roughly before he can go on. It is a sloppy kiss, buzzing with excitement and with too much teeth, and rough chuckles breezing past each other’s lips. But it isn’t anything other than perfect really because there is a happiness settling around them that he wants to capture and hold onto for forever.

“So we can runaway together?” Liam breathes against Zayn’s lips, sliding his palms up the back of his neck to tangle in the damp hair matted at his hairline.

“Far, far away,” Zayn promises before he connects his smile back to Liam’s.

**Two Years Later**

Liam’s fingers are soft at the base of his neck, rubbing at his skin distractedly. It is supposed to be soothing, because Zayn had been stressed, but it is more distracting than anything because all he can focus on is the warmth under his fingertips and the way just a simple touch from his boyfriend seems to send a calm through him. And he is supposed to be paying attention to his assignment -

Liam hums softly to the music to _I’ve been searching for a heart that needs a heart like mine_ that plays softly from the radio on his desk across the room, his eyes latched onto a series of designs in the textbook he holds in his other hand.   _I’ve been reaching for a hand that understands -_

Zayn sighs, dragging his eyes back to the sketchpad balanced in his lap. He has been working on the same project for months now and the deadline is quickly approaching but he has been at a standstill for practically a week now. L _oves me for the one that I am -_

Liam dips his fingers under the collar of Zayn’s polo, probably aware of the tension growing back in his shoulders. There is a concerned look on his face when he turns away from his textbook to look at him. _One touch, to touch the heart inside you –_

“Let me see what you’re working on,” he says, a teasing grin on his lips because Zayn has denied him from seeing it every other time he has asked, and Zayn is pretty sure Liam is fully aware of the effect his smile has on him.

Zayn pulls up, shifting closer to Liam’s side. They sit on his dorm bed, Liam’s legs crossed and his toes snuggled underneath Zayn’s bum. The bed is small, much thinner than the traditional twin like the one he had been used to sleeping in alone, but they make it work since Liam’s bed on the other side of the room is way too far. (Five feet, but still.)

With reluctance, he hands Liam over the sketchpad, hoping maybe feedback from someone other than his professor will help him find the motivation to get it done on time. Liam is biased though, he knows. Zayn could scribble the pen against the paper with his eyes closed and Liam would tell him it is a masterpiece.

He is just nervous because there is no way Liam will miss the fact that he has drawn and written _their_ story. The same story that Liam constantly brings up with a glow in his cheeks and eyes warm because _finding you was the best thing that ever happened to me, Zee –_

Liam’s eyes shine with excitement when he takes the sketchpad from him with gentle fingers like he is afraid that he may ruin it somehow. It is only the draft, filled with pages that have red marks form his professor and smudges from his eraser that he hadn’t bothered to fix. His professor said it has the potential to be published one day, as a children’s story like the ones his mother used to read. With it’s knight in green velvet and a blue scarf wrapped around his neck in love with a prince in all black, with a mask that covers most of his face.

Except in this story, the knight doesn’t save the prince – they save each other.

“Once Upon A Time…,” Liam starts in a hushed tone. He slides his finger carefully over the thick traced out letters that Zayn drew months ago when he had first started working on it. The ‘O’ is decorated, much bigger than the other letters that follow it and Zayn wonders if Liam can see the tiny dove that he had drawn in it. “Far, far away in a land where the air was dry and smelled of fish, there lived a prince –“

Zayn digs his chin into Liam’s shoulder as he reads, watching the way his lips look as they move around the words that Zayn practically has memorized. He turns every now and then, to look at him with a fond smile that makes his cheeks bunch up when he likes a line or a drawing. Zayn marks each one silently in his head as ones he should keep for his final draft.

“’The knight traveled all through the valleys to find his prince, the one with the dove tattooed on the back of his hand’- hey, I didn’t search the entire Valley. Just like, most of it.”

Zayn snorts, pressing a kiss to the soft skin of Liam’s shoulder. “Keep reading, dork.”

Liam nudges his nose against Zayn’s before he turns back to the sketch pad. Nearly every page has a drawing of Liam, and he hopes his boyfriend doesn’t point that out because he sort of made Liam the main character just so he could have an excuse to draw him as much as possible.

Liam’s breath hitches, his finger dragging over the words and Zayn has to hide his smile against his skin. It muffles the words he whispers along with Liam as he reads the line, in a breathy voice like he can’t believe that those words still ring true.

“’I love you,’ the knight said as he grabbed the prince’s cheeks. ‘And I love you.’”

Red creeps up the back of Liam’s neck, just like it always does when he says those three words, even though he has been saying them every day for nearly two years now.

Liam turns his head quickly, pressing a kiss to Zayn’s nose before he turns back to the book. He flips to the next page, where there is only the start of a tower drawn and nothing else. Liam looks back at him questioningly, like he hadn’t gotten the memo that Zayn was stuck on what to write next and that is why he had been stressed and needed comforting.

“Well,” Zayn starts to explain, taking the sketchpad from him and placing it on the nightstand beside the bed. Liam reading his story hadn’t worked on motivating him, because now all he wants to do is kiss him and fool around. “It is near the end of the book, right? Like, where you right _‘the end’_ and that wasn’t our end. It was our beginning, you know so -“

Liam considers this, falling back onto the bed as his textbook goes forgotten between his legs. He drags Zayn down with him, curling an arm around his smaller shoulders to pull him closer. He fits into his side perfectly, and Zayn is always overwhelmed by just how right it feels to be with Liam -

He has forgotten all about whoever he thought Liam Payne was before senior year. He can’t see anything other than kindness in his brown eyes and the warmth that always seems to cling to him. He has changed his look since high school, his hair cut shorter and styled into some kind of fake Mohawk at the top. There is a smatter of coarse hair against his chin and he likes to tickle it against Zayn’s skin to make him laugh. It is still his Liam, his Battyboy despite the change of look.

“Then say happily ever after,” Liam says as if it is obvious.

Zayn snuggles against his chest, pressing a palm over where his heart beats steadily under his skin. He had taken his shirt off when he came back from class, and Zayn considers maybe that is part of the distraction. “Happily ever after?”

Liam nods, shifting his fingers messily through Zayn’s hair. He too has changed his look, with a beard of his own and his hair pushed into a messy quiff at the top. There is even a yellow streak going through it, that Liam teased him for but ended up dragging him to bed because of.

“You know, ‘the hero and the prince lived happily ever after’ or something. Isn’t that how a lot of fairy tales end?”

Zayn pushes up, moving forward to hover his lips over Liam’s. He feels dumb that he hadn’t thought of that, because happily ever after is probably the best fit for their story.

“You mean, ‘And PrinceBoy and Battyboy lived happily ever after?’”

Liam grins as he nods. “Yeah, something like that –“

 

A few hours later, Liam snores quietly behind him, a loose arm wrapped around Zayn’s waist. Zayn sits up, his story on his lap and his fingers aching from having the pencil in his hand for so long. He had started drawing once Liam fell asleep and he hadn’t wanted to take a break, hadn’t wanted to lose the inspiration he got from his Liam -

Zayn huffs out a breath, relief mixing in with the warmth as he starts the last page. He takes his time, watching the pencil move gracefully against the page, careful as he carves out each letter. Most of what he has done here has been an outline, and he will have to go back and redo it but he is happy to have finished. So he can start their next story, whatever that may be.

It will have a happy ending, he knows. It has to be, with Liam by his side always -

_And they lived happily ever after._

**Author's Note:**

> So was it alright? Let me know what you think maybe? [tumblr](http://zipplekink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/aveszayn) if you need it!


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